PROVISIONAL NOTES ON PELHAM’S EARLIEST SETTLERS Alfred S. Romer September 1967

Of great interest is the question of our town’s earliest settlers—who were they?

Where did they come from? What happened to them? Have they descendants here today?

As is well known, most of the first settlers were “Scotch-Irish.” In the early

1600s King James of Great Britain, having trouble with the unruly Irish of Ulster, decided to quiet things by settling there a colony of peaceable Scotch Presbyterian farmers. For a time things went well with them, but in the early 1700s conditions worsened, and a large fraction decided to emigrate to America. Most went to

Philadelphia and spread southward as frontiersmen in the Appalachians. A fraction went to the west bank of the Hudson in New York State, settling Orange and Ulster Counties.

A relatively small number came to New England. Some (including a few later Pelham residents) took part in an abortive settlement on the Kennebec in Maine. Others founded

Londonderry, New Hampshire. Those In Massachusetts mainly settled at first in the

Worcester region. They were, however, none too happy there; for example, they built a

Presbyterian church in Worcester, but it was torn down by the local Puritans. Some went to “The Elbows” (later Palmer), others to Colrain; quite a number to a township which they wished to call New Glasgow, but which became Blandford. Still others, however, decided to form a town of their own. With the aid and advice of Squire John Chandler of

Worcester, two leaders, James Thornton and Robert Peebles, engaged to buy a large tract which was to constitute most of Pelham for Colonel Stoddard of Northampton (and several years later four of the settlers bought an additional strip along he south border).

1 To raise the necessary money, it was decided to divide the area (which they wished to call Lisburn, after an Ulster town) into 60 shares (plus one for the minister), each purchaser receiving a home-lot of a 100 acres or so, plus two other lots of poorer land.

The future town and its lots were surveyed in the summer and fall of 1739, and the next summer the first settlers moved in.

Who were the original settlers in these 61 lots (plus the extra land on the south)?

In the spring of 1739, when the “proprietors” first met, there were but 39 of them; to raise the necessary sum, quite a few of these men bought and paid for two lots, several bought more, and James Thornton (apparently quite prosperous) bought nine. Within the year, a dozen more purchasers were found, and over the next few years new settlers appeared from time to time, so that by 1745, five years from the first purchase, about 60 families were actually established.

To determine the actual list of settlers is difficult. Parmenter’s History cites from the records of the “Proprietary the list of the first purchasers; but this is far from the complete list of early settlers. Further, not all of these “proprietors” actually settled in

Pelham; some apparently got “cold feet” at moving into the wilderness, and others, it would seem, purchased on behalf of their sons or other relatives. To find just who was here in this early period, I have consulted three main sources: (1) the town records, with their lists of men serving in office, on committees, etc.; (2) the Registry of Deeds in

Springfield, which lists all landholders’ purchases and sales; (3) the Probate Court

Records in Northampton, where there is much data on wills and settlements of estates.

From these derives the following list of somewhat over 60 men who were householders, owning land in Pelham by 1745, and taking part in town affairs. This list does not

2 include sons of these settlers, many of whom became active citizens in later years; further, there were probably a number of other men in Pelham as renters or laborers who, of course, are not represented in the deeds and who would not be mentioned in the town records if they took no part in town affairs

Various landowners in this early period rather surely were non-resident. Some deeds appear to represent mortgages, and I have not listed them. Other names on deeds, not so surely of this nature but not appearing in the town records, are more doubtful; I have listed these separately.

What happened to these early settlers? I will discover much of this when I have had sufficient time, in the future, to check later feed and probate records. Some fractions of this I already know. Some certainly stayed for the rest of their lives in Pelham.

Many, however, moved on, restlessly, to new frontiers. A considerable number founded the town of Cambridge, new York, in the then wilderness west of Bennington. Others scattered in various directions, and I am afraid that without more work than I can ever do, over records of much of the eastern United States, I will never track all of them down.

These early settlers, of course, have today a host of descendants spread over the country; I know of such here and there. How many, however, are represented by people still living in Pelham today? Mr. Thornton is the only one that I know at the moment. If there are more in this category, please let me know. Later I would be very glad for family data on families who came to Pelham after this very early period; at the moment, I would most especially like data on this oldest family list.

3 Pelham householders during the first five years:

Abercrombie, Robert Johnson, John Alexander, James Johnson, Thomas Alexander, John King, Robert Berry, James Lotheridge, Robert Blair, John Lowden, Thomas Clark, Adam Lucore, John Clark, John Meklam, Andrew Cowan, Ephraim Meklam, Robert Cowan, George McClain, Robert Crawforrd, Jon McConel, James Crossett, Archibald McConkey, Alex Crossett, Robert McConkey, James Crossett, William McConkey, John Dick, John McConkey, William Dick, Thomas McCulloch, Alexander Dunlap, James McCulloch, James Ferguson, John McFarland, Andres Gilmore, James McFarland, John Gilmore, James Jr. McMullen, Thomas Gilmore, John Patterson, Adam Gilmore, William Peebles, John Gray, Hugh Peebles, Patrick Gray, John Peebles, Robert Gray, Matthew Rankin, Joseph Gray, Nathaniel Savage. John Gray, Samuel Selfridge. Edward Gray, William Stinson, John Gray, William Jr. Taylor, James Hamilton, John Thomas, David Hamilton, Thomas Thornton, James Hood, James Turner, Alexander Hunter, John Wason, John Johnson, Adam

Early Pelham property owners, apparently non-resident:

Barber, Robert Johnson, William Jr. Breckenridge, James Lockert, James Breckenridge, Thomas McCallum, John Crawford, Samuel McFarland, Alexander Gibson, James Thomas, Samuel Gordon, Robert Thornton, Matthew Hamilton, Micah

4

LIFE IN EARLY PELHAM Dr. Alfred S. Romer

We all know that Pelham was settled in 1739-40 by Scotch-Irish, who were almost the only inhabitants of the town for the first few decades. But what sort of people were they; and what was life like here in these early days?

First, these people were Scotch, not Irish. In the early 1600s, King James of

England was dissatisfied with the unruly Irish of Ulster, and forcing many of them out, replaced them with farmers from lowland Scotland. They had lived there for more than a century, but having grown dissatisfied with economic and religions conditions, many of them decided to emigrate to the New World. From 1718 on for the next half century, thousands of them came to America. A large part of them came to Philadelphia and spread southward through the mountains to become the frontiersmen of revolutionary days; but some of the earliest settlers came to new York State (witness Orange and Ulster counties on the west bank of the Hudson), and the very earliest, in 1718, landed in

Boston. Massachusetts didn’t quite know what to do with this influx. Some settled in

New Hampshire (Londonderry, southeast of Manchester); a few went to found, unsuccessfully, a colony in Maine; the greater part, however, were sent west to bolster up the frontier which (except for the older towns in the Connecticut valley meadows) then lay in the Worcester region.

Here they lived for 20 years. But not too comfortably, for they did not mix well with their Puritan neighbors, and, in fact, when they tried to build a Presbyterian church, their neighbors tore it down! After two decades the hill country between Worcester and the Connecticut Valley was open for settlement, and the Scotch-Irish began to head out.

5 One group purchased a segment of the “equivalent lands” in the hills which, due to boundary disputes, had been given to the state of Connecticut. (However, when purchased by the Worcester group, it was actually owned by a prosperous Northampton man who was the father-in-law of the famous preacher, Jonathan Edwards.) The Scotch-

Irish incorporated themselves as the “Lisburn Proprietary,” wishing to name their new settlement after an Ulster town. However, when they were incorporated as a town, an

English politician named Pelham was visiting Massachusetts, and the governor scratched out Lisburn and wrote in Pelham.

In 1739 when the land was purchased, it was agreed to divide it into 60 lots, plus one for the prospective minister. Each man was to have a home lot of 100 acres or more, plus a second choice lot suitable, perhaps, for pasture, and a third choice lot of rough land as a wood lot. In 1739 the first home lots were surveyed; the second and third choices could be delayed until later, but it was imperative that the owners start work soon to clear land and build homes. The families stayed back in Worcester until 1740. How much land was rough-cleared at once, we do not know; probably a few acres, so that a crop could be raised among the stumps in 1740. By the terms of the purchase, houses had to be “18 foot square and 7 foot stud.” (There were no log cabins; such structures were a

Scandinavian import.) No original house has survived intact, but the back wing of Mrs.

Partridge’s house is essentially of the original type—a big room with a large fireplace, as well as some smaller accessory cubicles. Later most houses were replaced by larger ones, or the old ones modified (a very few survive with additions).

These people were farmers. In early land deeds the signers usually told their occupations, and most signed as “yeoman/” The original settlers included two “smiths,”

6 two “carpenters,” and the parson signed as a “clerk”; but even these people all had a farm to work. Most of the crops they raised were those common to the country, but two innovations for New England arrived with the Scotch-Irish—potatoes and flax. Potatoes came originally from South America and by this time were fairly common in Europe— notable, as later, in Ireland—but had not previously reached North America, and were at first regarded with suspicion by the New England Puritans. Ulster was then, and is today, famous for linen, and flax raising was imported (for example, the small field west of the

Romer house is said to have been used for drying the flax). A set of tax returns for 1760, after the settlers had been in residence for 20 years, has survived. Here are some typical returns for that spring:

Thomas Johnson (who lived on what was later the Arnold homelot):

House 1 Cyder – barrels 2 ½ Oxen 3 Tons of hay 13 Cows 5 Oats, bushels, about 25 Horses 2 Wheat 2 ½ Sheep 26 Indian corn 30 Swine 4 Pasturing for 4 cows Tillage, about 7 ½ acres Orchard, acres 1 ½ Rye, bushels, about 19 Mowing land, acres 20

Patrick Peebles (he lived downhill from the present observation place on the Shay Highway):

Dwelling houses 2 Wheat, bushels 3 Oxen 4 Rye, bushels Cows 7 Indian corn, bushels 40 Sheep 30 Oats, bushels 60 Swine 1 Orchard, acres 3 ¾ Pasturage, acres 38 Cyder, barrels [sic] 26 Keeps cows 12 Mowing acres 35 Tillage acres 15 Tons of hay 25 Peas, bushels 5 Barley, bushels 1 ¾

7 These are among the more prosperous farmers; others show a much smaller acreage of cleared land and fewer animals. These returns were made in the spring, and hence supplies, such as root crops, were getting low. These Scotch had not imported whiskey with them, but all were well supplied with “cider”—which, by this time of the year, was probably quite potent.

So much for the farm; what about the house and barn contents? Possessions were few and simple. James Alexander, who lived on the Shay Highway, about a mile south of the town hall, died in 1747. Here is a complete list of his belongings, other than the clothes the family wore:

2 axes 2 small tubs 1 hatchet 1 water pail 1 syth 1 pigen 1 hoe 2 basins 1 syth tackling 2 porringers 1 small stilyards 1 small pot 2 beds furnished 1 plain chest 1 chest of drawers 1 cradle 1 beer barrel 1 table 1 pennel 1 meal chest an trough 1 great wheel 5 spoons 1 stal and ked 4 knifest forks 2 meal barrels 6 wooden dishes 2 butter tubs 1 ironing box 1 biblet books (5 sh. 9 p.) 1 iron candlestick 1 salt box 1 pot and pothooks 1 shave 1 frying pan 1 churn 1 fire shovel 1 cow bell 1 gland irons 1 basket 1 tamle 1 low pleater 1 wig 6 plates 6 chairs

The spelling is a bit odd, and a few things I am dubious about; but it was certainly not a sumptuously equipped house and barn.

8 Education was little advanced. Most of the men could write, as shown by their signatures on deeds, etc. But a few farmers could not, and there was apparently no education of women; invariably they sign papers by “her mark.” However, the settlers were apparently making this lack food, for from 1774 on the town meeting records provide for a school being held—at first for two months.

These farmers were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians who took their religion seriously.

The meeting house was erected in 1743, and was mainly for church services, although also used for town meetings. Pews were assigned to the various families—and paid for.

A Scotch divine, the Rev. Abercrombie, was called in to be the town parson. But as with the people of Scotland, the locals were particular about the exact pattern of their religion, and presently a schism developed between those who supported Abercrombie and those who differed with him on matters of doctrine. Within ten years Abercrombie was dismissed (and his salary, thriftily, stopped).

What sort of a life did one lead amongst these simple, hard-working farmers? We have not a single written description from any one in Pelham in these early days.

Fortunately we do have such a description for the town of Rutland, off to the east. This was a town with a large contingent of Scotch-Irish, who were in touch with Pelham, and where life was obvious similar. In the early 1800s an old gentleman who had been a boy in the 18540s wrote of his childhood as he remembered it:

“Morning and evening the domestic altar was surrounded, to unite in prayer and praise, for he blessing of the day, and the protection of the night. At the close of the week, preparation was made for the Sabbath. It was held sacred to pubic an private worship, and works of necessity and mercy. You might see not only on horseback, but both males and females, for miles on foot, making their way to the Sanctuary.”

9 “FOOD. …the morning and evening meals, were of the varieties of spoon-fare, from the rich pure milk, to the wholesome bean-porridge, …on long days a luncheon; at noon the long white tale was placed, the linen cloth spread, the wooden plates (as white as female hands could make) set, …the large brown dish, well filled with pork and beef from the stall, fowl from the yard, game from the forest, or fish from the waters; on baking days, a platter of rich pork and beans, and a delicious Indian pudding. The father and mother at the head, the ruddy sons on one side, and blooming daughters on the other, …after the blessing craved, they sat down and partook of a friendly, social, and hearty dinner;…after thanks for the same, each to their employment.”

“Their clothing was principally of home manufacture, of a strong texture, made from skins of beasts, clothing of sheep, and flax from the earth; young men did not wear watches or leather boots, …but some wore write stockings, jet black shoes, and silver buckles, as bright as a dollar; young women’s apparel was calculated for comfort, health and ornament; most of them were so well formed it did not take but a few yards of silk or calico for sleeves to their gowns.”

“The food, dress and employment of the children and youth, had a tendency to promote health, vigor and strength.”

“Whether the present method of living and mode of dress has a greater tendency to promote health, strength and usefulness, than that practiced by our ancestors, I submit to our sage matrons to decide.”

“Our young men were inured to the labor and management of a farm; …our young women to the management of a dairy and domestic business in general, and both united in milking the cows, pulling and spreading the flax, etc.; and the most of them made good and industrious husbands or wives.”

“The farmers in general were in comfortable and easy circumstances; when their garners were replenished and cellars stored, the good Parson was not forgotten. As there were no small wagons, or pedlars, it was not seldom for mothers to join in company (with a young son to attend them) mount their strong and sure-footed horses, and with their panniers well filled with the golden produce of their dairies, and some nice diaper from the Irish looms, and ride upwards of fifty miles ton market, and make an exchange with the Boston merchants, for some articles for their own comfort, and to please and ornament their daughters as a reward for their industry and economy, and not wholly forgetting their sons. The long winter evenings were enjoyed by a blazing fire and bright torch light, in domestic concerns, in reading of champions, telling heroic tales, singing animated songs, eating fruit, etc. Our young men were courageous, athletic an heroic— our young women industrious, cheerful and healthy.”

10 Age may have cast a golden haze over the old gentleman’s memory; but he certainly seemed to remember a pleasant boyhood in the siple surroundings of an old central Massachusetts town in the 1750s.

Alfred Romer

11 HE DIDN’T LIKE PELHAM By Alfred S. Romer

Lyman Sibley Rowland, who later graduated from Amherst College and became a minister, lived in Pelham as a youth a century and a quarter ago. He didn’t like it much, as can be seen below. He wrote an autobiography, from which I can quote, thanks to a descendant, Mrs. Robert Fisher.

His father had been a tenant farmer in Oxford, Grafton, and Dudley. But now, to quote:

“Father had ‘land hunger’ and ‘had it bad.’ He got restless, wanted a place of his own, and finally he pulled up stakes and moved again! He had saved a little money and now he bought a farm in Pelham, Hampshire County. There were sixty acres of poor land, a good wood lot, a barn, an old cow barn and a house. He had farmed for other people all his life, now he would have one of his own. It was nothing to him that he was already fifty years old, in a thriving village where four children could live at home and earn good wages, where the younger ones could go to school. There were now seven children and I Dudley there would be a place for them all as they came along; but no—he must buy a farm!

“The change was made in July 1841. I was ten years old and I had planted a garden myself which was doing well—but I turned it over to the man in the other part of the house. A man came down from Ware and moved the household goods and brought a two-seated wagon for mother and the little ones. We left one afternoon, rode through Southbridge and Sturbridge and spent the night at West Brookfield. The next day we passed through Ware, got along to Enfield for lunch and reached the new home in Pelham, in the afternoon of July eighth and unpacked enough to get a supper and beds for the tired family. It seemed a long journey to me though the distance was about forty miles. The chestnut trees were in bloom. Perhaps I had seen them before, but I saw them with new eyes then and never since have I seen the chestnut trees lightening the hillsides with their flowers without thinking of that midsummer journey.

“It was late in the season to raise anything, but there was hay to cut and endless repairs and improvements awaiting the next owner, and father went to work very enthusiastically. The sense of proprietorship was an inspiration to him, and I, a boy of ten, of course enjoyed the change and entered zealously into my part of the work. I think I can say truthfully that I earned my full living after I was ten years old. I went to the district school only two short terms of eight weeks each after that time, and was at work all the time either out of doors or in, not occasionally, but constantly. Indeed there was

12 nothing to do but work. Circumstances afforded hardly any opportunity for youthful enjoyments. My only diversion was a book when I could get one, which was not often.

“It was a hard struggle to make a living off this farm, nor was it ever really done without substantial help from the children who were obliged to go away for work, since there was nothing here for them to do. Yet poor as it was, it made a home and gathering place for the family for fourteen or fifteen years, and it is the only place of all my various sojournings to which the sense of home attaches…”

The farm was “…in the south part of the town between the roads leading from Pelham Centre to Belchertown and that from Pelham Centre to Enfield. It was two and a half miles from the Centre and five from Enfield, a rough, stony farm with a wide prospect. Wachuset Mountain stood directly east forty or fifty miles away, and Mount Monadnock, northeast perhaps as far. We could look over Prescott and Petersham, and they said we could see twelve steeples, but I never did. The prospect was the best and principal product of the farm, which lay forty or fifty rods off the road down a lane, and there were perhaps seven families within a half mile, one Mr. Daniel Dodge quite near…

“The house that we had come to had been built some years before by Phineas Davidson, and it was neither new nor in good repair. There were two rooms on the lower floor with an open shed or ‘back-way’ partitioned off at one end. The room on the north was ceiled or boarded at the sides and overhead. This was the ‘best room.’ Of course there was a bed in it and at first it was heated by a fire-place for which we had some brass andirons, and later by a stove. This was for ‘company,’ for the children who came home for visits, for the teacher who ‘boarded round,’ and for me years afterward when I came home from college. In the later years we had a rag-carpet on the floor and here Lucy was married.

“On the left, or south was the living room with mother’s bed in it. A dresser was built across one corner, and the fire-place had an iron frame and shelf, the only fine thing in the room. In the later years there was a stove too, and in very cold weather both stove and fire-place were kept going! This room was boarded at the sides, but not ceiled. The beams were exposed; poles went across the hanging shelves.

“Between the two rooms was the enormous chimney, and the brick oven opening into the living room, which was used at first but given up later as unsafe. Cellar stairs went down from the kitchen, and stairs to the second floor from the front entry. After the first year or two father ‘did off’ the large back entry beyond the partition into a little bedroom and buttery, and we called the whole the Lobby!

“Upstairs was one large room running the whole length. At the south end the corn was stored in the winter, but there was no ‘drapery’ nor even a bed-quilt separating the granary from the bedroom because we needed the light from the window. In this south part we had two beds for the girls, and the north side of the chimney was my room or ‘the boy’s room.’

13 “The whole attic was so low that only the middle was available and the chimney was so large that it made all the partition that was needed! There was no ceiling or boarding and of course no plaster and I have often told my children how I could look out of the cracks and see the stars and how many a time I have waked up to find little drifts of snow on my bed-quilt. In the course of time, father shingled the roof and then it was tight and we had no more snow inside, but as father used to say, ‘We lived here seven years before we had a roof over our heads.’

“After a while Harriet fixed up the ‘boy’s room,’ made a stand out of a barrel, carried up a chair, and then ‘the boy’ had a fine room where he could study his lessons and be by himself! But I used to take the cat to bed to keep my back warm. The cat liked it and would come up and purr to get into bed with me!

“South of the barn and in the lane was a never-failing spring and the cows had to come up from the pastures for their water, but it was very convenient in the winter. Near the porch door was a well and father paved the ground between so that we could get our water dry-shod. The first year we had no stock but a horse and cow, but we sometimes had two or three cows, a yoke of steers, or oxen. By and by father sold off a lot of walnut wood for timber and bought a buggy, and the buggy and the firewood together occupied the old cowbarn.

“Soon after we settled down in Pelham we all learned how to braid palm leaf hats. It was an industry carried on in all the towns around my almost every household, and an industry that was a great boon to the people on these little farms as it was work that required no capital and no tools, could be taken up for a few minutes and dropped at any time—was clean, pleasant, promoted sociability, for you could take a hat and run over to a neighbor’s and braid—old and young could work and talk, and money could be earned at it when nothing else could be done.

“The palm leaf, cut in strips and ready for use, was sometimes carried around by peddlers who took the finished hats on the next tip, but more often the material was given out at he store. We usually got ours at ‘Hills’ in Amherst and carried our hats back there, receiving our groceries in return. I learned to braid up firm and tight. First we braided a ‘button’ an inch or more square, and secured it with a fragment of the palm leaf. Then we added them continually and braided the to[p of the crown, --stopped adding them to make the sides of the crown, and then suddenly put in a lot more to braid the brim. There were three sizes of hats (at least), ad many grades of fineness, ad some varieties too, made by using some colored strands. There were very nice ones with doubled brims.

“People got very expert and could braid in the dark. Some would occasionally give a whole day to it and finish six—though they could hardly have been of the large size or fine grade. But sandwiched in with other work, utilizing the stormy days and the long evenings, boys and girls, young and old, picking up a hat to braid at odd minutes. In all these ways a good many hats would go from every home to the store and many a household paid all its store bills in this way. Harriet thinks that we usually bought our palm leaf outright and then received more for our hats; --that the prices averaged ten

14 cents a hat, with the nice fine ones bringing twenty-five cents. But I remember getting some straw from Chauncey Wheeler (not pay8ing for it), and after I carried back one hundred hats, tied up in a sheet and slung over my shoulder while I trudged to Pelham Hill with them. Mr. Wheeler said as I came in, ‘Here comes a boy whose hats I like to get.’ He gave me ‘fo’ punce’ apiece for them (six and a quarter cents), and I carried back six dollars and a quarter in cash, --and Harriet says I bought myself some clothes with the money.

“These hats were pressed and made ready for the market in East Amherst and sold all over the country.

“Near the Enfield line, two miles or more by the road but about a mile ‘cross-lots, was a neighborhood called Packardville. Here was a carriage-shop and a little Baptist church with sporadic preaching by tramp preachers, but no Sunday-School, no instruction, simply an intermittent Sunday service.

“It was here that I went to singing school and learned a few notes of Greenville and those other musical accomplishments which afforded my children so much amusement.

“The school house where I went was a mile from home, north, on the road to Pelham Centre, ear the house of Squire Kingman, the ‘big’ man of the community. The school house where I really belonged was south, near or in Packardville, but the road was poor and long and I chose to go to the other. The last time I was in Pelham, a few years ago, I discovered that the two school districts had been united and the one school house was situated in a very lane that used to lead to our old home!

“But I went to school only two short winter terms, with Ransom Allen and E. Towne for teachers, simply going over again what I had learned in Dudley. The other winters the schools were so poor that I did not care to go. It was a cold, bitter walk to the north, and once I froze my ears solid, and in 1845 I was taken sick at school and got home with difficulty to go to bed with lung-fever. I often used to eat my lunch on my way to school to get rid of carrying it and then I would come home ravenous at night.

“Practically I got nothing from common schools after leaving Dudley,, but I read everything I could lay my hands on. I had the reading of a weekly Northampton paper called the Hampshire Gazette and later I saw the Amherst paper, Hampshire and Franklin Express. I remember the first number of this. The stage brought it to Knight’s Corner. I went for it and carried it to Squire Gold who lived beyond, --but meanwhile I read it all through, advertisements and all! We were allowed the reading for the delivery.

“Sometimes we had prayer-meetings around at the houses and brought in boards to help out the chairs. Sometimes there were baptisms at the Packardville church and they damned up a brook to make a pond deep enough for an immersion. Sometimes there were parties with rough kissing games and a dance in the kitchen, the cook-stove taken down for the occasion. I occasionally went to one, but I couldn’t dance and I didn’t

15 enjoy them. There were no sports except ball on Fast-Days (a sermon or service then was unheard of), and hunting on old election day (the last Wednesday in May), when we killed all the birds we could.

“How I hated the life there! I felt, without explaining it, the narrow outlook, the uncongenial atmosphere and the lack of privilege. I got on well enough with the boys, but there was not one who felt as I did or who had ambitions for something better. I vented my feelings during these years in the following doggerel!

“When Adam left his Eden fair And wandered forth abroad, He chanced to find old Pelham Hill And there at last fixed his abode. And sure, thought he, I’m up so high Satan will search for me in vain, He ne’er will come so near the sky For fear he won’t get back again. But Adam was a mistaken dunce; For Satan soon did come He took poor Adam off at once And made old Pelham Hill his home.”

16 MARY E. SHAW DANE [ca. 1843-1938] Letter dated Enfield, Mass., July 18,1928 to S. Alice Collis, Pelham Old Home Day Association [Letter recalls families on King Street ca. 1860s] Original Document in Pelham Historical Society Archives, History room Archives Collection Pelham Free Public Library

Enfield, July 18, 1928

Dear Miss Collis

I wish to thank you very much for letting me know when old home day comes on

Pelham hill. I may not be able to be there, but possibly I may. I promised you I would try and tell you what I could about King Street. If I could see you I could tell you a good many things that I cannot write. First I will begin at the south end of King Street. The first family was Luther Lincoln and his wife and four children, Almon, Horace, Lensy and Isabell, the next east her Whipple place. Mr. and Mrs. Russel Whipple with their family off seven children—Solomon, James, David and Russell. The girls were Jane,

Mary Ann, and Lensy. David Whipple’s widow married Strickland and lived on the home place. The next house was Jonathan Griffin and his four boys—Otis, George and

Orlando and Chaney. Griffin Otis married someone I never k??? but she did not live very long and for his second wife he married Luthera Ward, sister to Charles Ward of Pelham.

They had one boy by the name of Harry. I don’t know what has ever become of him.

Otis and Luthera have both been dead long years ago. The next was King house for whom the street was named, there was a large family of them, four boys and four girls.

Their mother was there with them, but the father died a great many years ago. I remember them all as if it was but yesterday. We had such good times together. There

17 was scarcely a day that we did not see each other, but they are all gone—every one, and I am still left, but there’s a reason for everything here. God moves in a mysterious way.

Well there is but one more and that was the Boynton place. The three children lived there alone—Jane, Currie, and a brother. My ???? their parents died when they were quite yonny. Then came my dear mother’s home where we lived together with my brother

George until I was sixteen and then went away to Amherst to work in the Hat Shop for

Henry Hill. The last time I was up in King Street I could hardly see a thing that reminded me of the old neighborhood. Everything was all grown up to woods and brush—there was a few old apple trees that was there seventy years ago but I could not make it seem as if I had ever lived there—not as much as a shingle left to tell the story. If I could see you,

I could tell you lots more, but I will close now for I am tired. Love to you and your

Mother.

Mrs. Dane

18 NOTES OF A CONNECTICUT VALLEY OBSERVER Walter A. Dyer

Pelham Pastorals—White Hopes

Packardville, as I have said, lies in the southeast corner of Pelham, close to

Enfield and not far from the Belchertown line. It consists of a group of farms and dwellings and a pretty white church. There is nothing of the village about it; it is hardly a hamlet; but Packardville is very definitely a place.

Until you know Packardville you do not really know Pelham. Bobbin Hollow has its individuality; Pelham Hill is unique and, to us, important; and there are stretches of partially inhabited country, lonely roads, and wooded hills which help to give Pelham its unspoiled rural character. Populous West Pelham enjoys many advantages over the other sections. We have better roads, perhaps, and nearer neighbors. We enjoy the prosperity that comes from local industries, particularly the fish-rod factory. We are near Amherst.

But all that has made us rather citified to be fully representative of the real Pelham.

Packardville possesses, on he whole, more of the authentic atmosphere of the country life of long ago than any other section of the town. Therefore I am fond of Packardville.

We went over to Packardville one evening not long since, to attend a church supper and entertainment, and we had a good time. After it was over, Madam and I talked about it a little, and it seemed to us that this occasion threw some light on two misconceptions commonly held regarding Pelham and other New England rural communities.

One false notion is that country people lack social advantages. Well, that all depends on what you mean by social advantages. Social formality and ceremony are not

19 at a premium with us. We don’t doll up a great deal. We don’t stand around at afternoon teas and bore one another. But we have our church supers and our birthday and wedding anniversary parties, and our country dances in the Community House, and everybody goes. We have no cliques and no snobbishness. We know how to enjoy ourselves. Ours is a social democracy. The lines are seldom drawn between young and old. We mingle, we converse, we pass the bantering word, we get acquainted. These things, it strikes me, are social advantages.

The other misconception has to do with the supposed degeneracy of the hill towns. Possibly such degeneracy exist farther back, but I suspect that in most cases this reputation is due to carelessness of observation and a too great readiness to jump to conclusions. Years ago I used to hear awful stories about the hillbillies of Shutesbury and Pelham and Belchertown, and I know now that those stores were for the most part libel. Pelham has her shiftless citizens and her weak spot. So, unless I am greatly mistaken, have Amherst and Springfield, Boston and New York. As a matter of fact, our overseers of the poor and our constables have very little to do. People who don’t dress up in their Sunday clothes all the time aren’t necessarily degenerate. Altogether, I should say that those city visitors who malign us need new glasses and a broader outlook on life.

* * *

That Pelham is running down at the heel I would deny with equal emphasis. Our farms, perhaps, are not what they were once, but that is due to changed conditions in the agricultural industry rather than to laziness on the part of Pelham farmers. Hard work is the rule up here. And I could name citizens of Pelham who represent the solid old stock,

20 whose ideals are lofty and alive, and who are making progress and are working for the good of their fellow men.

And finally, no community is in danger of running out that can show the children what Pelham can. You should have gone with us that night to Packardville.

You know the work the Farm Bureau is doing. Everywhere this excellent agency is making great improvements not only in agriculture but also in rural domestic life.

Pelham has been a fertile field for its efforts, particularly among the children. Certain progressive parents and teachers and other citizens have been largely responsible for that.

Pelham has thriving poultry, sewing, cooking, and handicraft clubs among the boys and girls, and the Packardville affair was the annual awarding of prizes to the club members.

* * *

The supper in the church was scheduled to begin at 6:30, and Madam and I and two of our neighbors set off in the flivver as soon as I could get the cows milked and the evening chores done up. Packardville is about six miles from Rock Walls Farm, mostly up hill. The Selectmen had just begun spring work on the Enfield Road and it was pretty bad in spots. The flivver was acting abominably, and with the extra load on the back seat

(it happens that these two neighbors are not little ladies), I had to drop into low a dozen times. I hate that. But we were a jolly party nevertheless.

The supper was a great success. Rolls, cookies, and butter were made and furnished by girl club members, and they were of the finest quality. A banquet it was, at thirty-five cents a plate.

There is a school teacher down in Packardville, and until you know her you have no right to pass judgment on Pelham. I believe she was born in Packardville, and I doubt

21 if she has ever desired to live anywhere else. She is a first-class teacher and a church worker. She is in everything. She is one of the moving spirits in our town library and our Old Home Day Association, and she did as much as anyone else to start these clubs for girls and boys. She is civic pride and responsibility personified. I don’t know where you would find a better American citizen.

The Teacher and her mother and sister and other Packardville ladies saw to it that we were well fed and then we went out and stood on the church porch. The children, fifty or sixty of them perhaps, were playing on the lawn. It was chilly and we wore our overcoats and wraps, but exercise kept those kids warm.

* * *

I don’t know when I have enjoyed watching children more than I enjoyed watching those. There were as active and as lacking in self-consciousness as kittens. I stood there for three quarters of an hour grinning and feasting my eyes on them. Now and then there was a little mist or drizzle in the air, but not a child was shrilly called in.

How certain city parents of my acquaintance would have fretted! But there was no need to fret about these youngsters. Husky, red-cheeked, self-reliant, wholesome looking. I couldn’t he contrasting them with white-faced, timid, querulous, nurse-ridden children that I have seen trying to play in city parks. Play, which seems to come so naturally to the normal child, is the hardest thing in the world to achieve when conditions are against it. These children took to it like ducklings to water.

They were a good-natured lot too. Their whole mental attitude seemed healthy.

There was no snubbing of the smaller children by the older, no apparent antipathy between girls and boys. They were of all ages, from two to fifteen. One or two tall girls

22 seemed at first a little in doubt as to whether to romp or to deport themselves in a more ladylike manner, but at length they succumbed to the allurement of drop-the- handkerchief. There were one or two lanky, overgrown boys, a delicious little pair of twins named Pearl and Ruby, and one or two of those enterprising boy leaders who always rejoice in being “it.” And little Skeezix, the two-year-old, with cheeks like

McIntosh apples, laughed and crowed and played by himself and seemed intent on learning how to wind up and throw like a baseball pitcher.

Then the Farm Bureau Man came out and organized the play and taught them new games into which they entered as heartily as those of their own devising. I think the adults were all a bit sorry when we were called inside.

There was a Samanthy and Josiah Allen” playlet, designed to bring out a discussion of the rising generation. The Teacher and the Packardville Farmer took the leading parts, and took them well, with the introduction of not a little witty improvising.

Against this background the club members exhibited their handiwork. It was rather impressive. Practically every child had finished the job begun, whether it was making a dress or building a saw-horse. Children who can work as well as that, and play as well as that, and look happy all the time, are an asset to any community.

The Farm Bureau Man told one story that amused us. It was about a small boy in some other town who had elected to join the cooking class and had won first prize in the bread-making contest. When asked why he had chosen that instead of carpentering, he replied, “Well, I thought I’d like to arrange so that when I grow up I won’t have to get married.” The consensus of opinion among the audience seemed to be that his views might undergo a change later on.

23 * * *

This Packardville affair, I maintain, was a social function of the first order. It was an entertainment that really entertained and it showed Pelham society organized on the family plan, as society should be organized, with young and middle-aged and old of both sexes mingling freely and pleasurably. There was nothing unusual about it, nothing peculiar to Packardville or Pelham. It was the sort of thing that is going on all the time in our New England rural communities, keeping lives fresh and wholesome, preventing stagnation, encouraging cooperation. Yet they say that we have no social advantages!

It is the clean, simple, natural things that seem to me most significant in all social intercourse. Work and play, growth and character building, the inculcation of civic ideals—what mere highly organized civilization can offer anything better?

Grand things on a small scale are what men and women are doing in Pelham.

You don’t hear about them; they aren’t spectacular. But they have in them the essence of service, of the American ideal.

But what the men and women are doing is of little consequence compared with what the children are doing. They are our White Hopes, in Pelham and everywhere else.

Give us healthy children, children who are taught some of the fundamental principles of honesty and industry, children who keep busy, children who can play whole-heartedly and work with joy in the job, children growing up in an environment where other ideals than those of selfish gain are upheld, and the future is secure.

Such were the thoughts that occupied my mind as I drove homeward. I did not talk; I let the others do that. As a matter of fact, I had to attend strictly to my driving in order to keep the flivver on the road. It had begun to rain and the going was slippery

24 down those hills. Mist was on the wind-shield, and it was difficult to see the bumps and holes in time to avoid them. But the neighbors on the back seat never noticed. They were happy. The daughter of one of them had won first prize in the West Pelham Sewing

Club and her ride was pardonable.

I put up the flivver, scattered the breakfast grain for the chickens, saw Sandy comfortably settled in his woodshed bed, did my few bedtime chores, and then began to philosophize to madam. Her mind was, however, working more specifically.

“Did you notice those twins? She asked.

Walter Dyer Springfield, Mass. June 10, 1923

25 RECOLLECTIONS OF KING STREET, PELHAM Springfield Newspaper No ca Sept. 21, 1929

Story of Old Homes and Families as Told at Pelham Old Home Day

From Our Special Correspondent

Amherst, Sept. 21—One of the regrets of the ordinary historical accounts is that they often lose sight of personal interest and reminiscences because of the detail involved. Such accounts indicate the major changes that have occurred and often the apparent reasons. The facts remain unchanged so far as the records go that pass to succeeding generations; and any one statement of them will be but irksome repetition.

But if one of the neighbors of yesterday could drop in for a friendly chat and could muse at length over bygone days, how vividly realistic and human the historical picture would become.

Such, in effect, is the nature of the papers presented by former residents at the

Pelham Old Home Day held recently, and it is with this thought that we quote the paper

“Old King Street,” by one who has lived on the street. Miss Alice S. Baker, now a resident of Easthampton, has given the delightful characterization which follows:

“About a quarter of a mile of the lower part of King Street, where the road is narrowest, as everyone knows, is in Belchertown.

“The first house to the north was known as the Lincoln Homestead, and stood on the left of the roadway. Some careworn woman’s hands had planted cinnamon roses about the doorway, the only ones on the street. East of the house, the road led to the ruins of a dam where was once located a woolen mill, perhaps run by a family named Hastings who at one time occupied the house.

26 “The next house was known as the Whipple farm. House and barn were situated on the right and the house had the distinction of being the only one on the street with water conveyed into it by a pump. Luscious golden sweet apples and Martha Stripes, the latter a new one to me, grew in the orchard.

“A few rods beyond, on the left, was the Griffin house, with the barn opposite. In the 33 years we lived on King Street, we had many different neighbors living in this house from time to time. The family who lived there longest were William Kennedy, the wife and five children. Such fun and enjoyment as we had in the long evenings playing games, not high low jack or euchre, but the instructive Chautauqua games.

“Just beyond, on the same side of the street, a Mr. King had built a house, the last erected on the street to bear his name. In 1880, a family came to live there from

Somerville, Roger Donahue, wife, and six children. They have all passed on but the tow youngest girls, who are living in Newark, N.J. and paying taxes on the abandoned farm on King Street.

“It was in March, 1870, that the Baker family took possession of the Emory

Boynton homestead just north of the King house. The deed read, “80 acres, more or less.” The house was built by a Mr. Lincoln around 1810, who occupied it for a time.

Later on a large family by the name of Wheeler lived there. I was greatly impressed by the number of names I read from a long row of headstones in the Hollow cemetery, one death occurring each year for a long period of time. I have been told it was a tuberculosis family. Three daughters married and lived side by side. Eunice married a Griffin,

Abigail a King, and Mary Ann, Emory Boynton who bought the farm of Mr. Lincoln. It

27 was his son Myatt who brought Leona Smith Boynton to this house, a bride of 17, way back in the sixties.

“When Pelham’s nature writer wrote of finding the calopogon in his mowing, how vividly it brought to mind the afternoon over on King Street when I struggled with the same specimen, and how elated I felt when I won out with Wood’s botany. That was before the days of Mrs. Dana’s How to Know the Wild Flowers or the many other books that soon followed.

“To the north of us on the left was the Shaw house, at that time in a good state of preservation, having only recently been vacated, but time and the elements soon leveled it to the ground. For years the chimney proclaimed to travelers of King Street that the joys of living once abounded there. The common red rose, day lilies, bouncing betsy scattered over the ground and oh—such luxuriant treasures of purple lilac bloom around the house in lilac time testified to the family’s love for flowers.

“A little farther on the same side of the street was the Bishop house also tenantless, with its one spike of elecampane by the roadside and the spring under the larders on the opposite side of the road. As one ascended the steep hill a cellar hole on the right indicated a house once stood on the bleak hillside. I have been told Moses

Davis, brother of Seth Davis, lived there.

“If I am not mistaken, Dunlap brook, famed for its stone bridge, has its source on

King Street. In 1870 the last house was occupied by Norris Chamberlain, a veteran of the

Civil War. When we moved away in 1902 it was the only house occupied on the street, but was soon afterwards burned. A cottage has since been erected on or near the site and is the only one on the street at the present time.

28 “A man whose name will go down in the corridors of time as a humane owner of

Old bob once told me he had seen the time when you could pick up a sled load of young people to attend a party in a very short space of time—and now they are all gone away.

The clematis can go on weaving its beautiful garlands over the alders; and the woodbine that was trained to go up on the Shaw house has taken to the trees in a very artistic manner—undisturbed now by road commissioners going up and down seeking what they may destroy, for the street is closed to tem as well as to the public. Nature is surely having her own way on King Street.”

29 MT. LINCOLN The way to it; What is seen on the way and from the Tower at the Summit; an Historically Interesting Route to it. By Charles Oscar Parmenter

Looking over my finances lately just as the vacation season was coming on, with various visions of vacation trips in mind, I was astonished to find that my surplus was nothing fearful to look at nor was there any danger of corrupting influences from it that I could discover. There was not enough for a trip to Europe or to buy a Raymond excursion ticket to the Yellowstone Park, or even to the White mountains, so I was obliged to be more modest and economical in y vacation outing and in casting about for some trip within reach of my dilapidated finances. I finally settled upon a trip to Mt.

Lincoln and the newly erected observatory, and to take in whatever else of interest there was to be found within the ancient town of Pelham; for it is one of the ancient towns, though it was not incorporated until 1749. There were but eight towns at that time in the old county of Hampshire, comprising Hampshire, Hampden and Franklin; and there are but two towns in Berkshire county older than Pelham. I decided to take a day off for our proposed vacation outing, and waited for some time for just the right sort of a day, which

I decided must be clear and cool and the atmosphere clear from smoky haze that would interfere with the extended view I desired from the tower. The right sort of a day came at last, as I judged, and we were early on the way. The county highway leading from

Amherst through Pelham is a part of the sixth chartered turnpike in Massachusetts. It started at the east line of Amherst and was built through to Worcester, and chartered June

22, 1799. Following the old turnpike we passed through the little hamlet near the fishing- rod factory of E.P. Bartlett, where twenty-five hands are engaged turning out the finest

30 split bamboo fishing-rods made anywhere, and which go to all parts of the country. We begin to ascend, and soon reach the site of the Orient house, where in 1861 a three-story hotel, one hundred feet long, was erected on a plateau commanding a fine view to the west and south-west. The grounds about the hotel and the mineral springs in the deep ravine back of it were much frequented for a number of years, or until the hotel was burned in 1880. On the right, just before reaching the Orient grounds, we pass a plain white farm-house, which is the birthplace of Dr. H. W. Harkness, president of the

Academy of Sciences at San Francisco, Cal. Who is a native of the town and has attained eminence in the pursuit of scientific knowledge, as well as the practice of medicine. The doctor spent one or two seasons at the Orient house while in charge of the late Dr. H.

Heed, and very much enjoyed roaming among the scenes of his youthful days in search of fungi for examination under the microscope.

Beyond the Orient groves we come to a long, low one-story brown house on the left at the foot of a steep hill. Perhaps no man living knows when this house was built, but asd it looks now, so it has appeared for the last half century. What gives this plain house historical interest is the fact that in it on the 20th of April, 1813, W. Smith Otis, the inventor of the steam shovel, was born. He was the son of Isaac Otis and Tryphena

Smith Otis. He became an engineer and the need oif some power other than hand labor for excavating on public works led his thoughts to devising machinery for that purpose and their “Yankee geologist” or steam excavator, as it was called was the result. William

Smith Otis died at Westfield in 1839 at the age of 26 years. Down in the ravine back of the brown house at a little forge driven by water, Isaac Otis, father of William, made scythes at one time.

31 Farther along up above the brown house, we got a view to the left of the farms and the further side of Amethyst Brook and known as “the Valley.” We reach a level section of the road which extends perhaps for a quarter of a mile with the West Pelham

Methodist Church at the end of the stretch. Just west of the church, a small building now used as a barn is pointed out as the store in which J. J. Draper of Northampton began his successful career as a business man, selling West India goods, such as the inhabitants of his native town in those day demanded.

From Amherst center to this place we had been following substantially the line of march of Capt. Daniel Shays and the 1100 men under his command on their retreat from

Springfield on the 28th of Jan. 1787, after the disastrous attempt to capture the arsenal two days before. The snow was several feet deep upon the highway Shays and his army marched along that day in his retreat to his old rendezvous at the old Conkey tavern in the

“Hollow” between Pelham west and east hills, where he had drilled his deluded followers for months before marching to Springfield. Possibly some of the Shays rebels marched by the “valley” route to Pelham center, as they were in a hurry, knowing that Gen.

Sheppard was in pursuit not many miles behind. The General, however, only followed the trail of Shays as far as Amherst, leaving the latter to continue his flight up the Pelham hills, while he marched the state troops under his command to Hadley for comfortable quarters.

Turning abruptly to the right, we toil up the hill in a southerly direction and pass several large farmhouses, one of which was used as a tavern in the old staging days, when a daily line of stages started out from Northampton in the morning for Boston, and the stage from the “Hub” came down over these same hills late in the afternoon, reaching

32 Northampton in the evening. On our left and to the eastward when no mist is in the air on the crest of the range we see Mt. Lincoln and the tower which is our objective point, perhaps a mile away, as the crow flies, but farther by the road winding among the hills.

Two byways turn from the main highway to the right after leaving the Methodist church, the first leads to “Butter Hill,” where a very fine view of Amherst ad the surrounding country is obtained and where twenty-five churches can be counted on a clear day.

The second is a town road leading to Belchertown, and half a mile away is the old asbestos mine which was worked at one time, and farther on is the trout propagating farm of W. Scarborough of Cincinnati,, Ohio. Passing this road, we climb a sharp ascent and pretty soon the red farm-house of Albert Stevens of Amherst comes into view, and just beyond we leave the county road and turn to the left into the forest and commence the last stage of the ascent to Mt. Lincoln.

Just a little farther along the county road which we have just left, us the site of the old homestead of James Smith, Esq., where he lived for many years and raised his family.

He was a contractor on the Western railroad when it was built—now known as Boston &

Albany—and his son, James N Smith of Brooklyn, N.Y., recently deceased, spent his life in railroad building; a son of the last named continues in the business. A daughter of

James Smith became the wife of Sidney Dillon, the well-known railroad builder, manager and millionaire of New York.

We had chosen the early morning for our climb to the tower and were on the way at 4 A.M. The sun rose clear when we were perhaps a mile and a half from the tower but was soon obscured by a fog which came sweeping along from the south and for two

33 hours it was dense and a fine mist was falling when we reached the summit. One could not see ten rods in any direction and the drizzling fog went sweeping past, borne along by a southerly breeze. All the view, of course, was shut off and we could do nothing but listen to the early morning sounds that came up from the forests and valleys below. The songs of bobolinks, brown thrushes, cat birds and robins, came up from unseen trees; the more distant crowing of cocks in some farm-yard and the whistles of early trains on far away railroads, seemed to give promise of fair weather soon and so we waited. It was not long before we could see a patch of clear sky overhead and a flash of sunlight broke in upon the gloom for a few seconds, only to make the fog seem thicker as it intervened and shut off the rays. Tired of waiting, at last we descended from the tower and were preparing to make the descent from the mountain, reluctantly concluding that we must await for a more auspicious occasion, when a breeze from the north indicated a change of wind; the direction of the drifting fog soon changed, and it was not long before there was a break in the thick masses through which the sunlight flashed and lighted up the top of the mountain. Wider and wider grew the breadth of the view every moment; the nearest farm-houses down the slope were soon in sight and the blue smoke from the chimneys indicated that the morning meal was in preparation. Mile after mile was added to the diameter of the circle of which the tower seemed the central point, until the church at

Pelham center and the nearer portions of Amherst could be seen between the masses of fleecy fogbanks that the increasing breeze from the northwest swept along toward the south and piled up into a huge bank against the Holyoke range, completely shutting the range from view for some time. The mass began to break after a while and sail away southward, opening up the southwestern landscape; later the mists along the Connecticut

34 River were dissipated by the sun mounting higher and flooding the whole valley with light. Amherst, with its colleges, its straw factories, its churches and residences is in full view; Hadley’s two spires, Hatfield with one, Northampton and Easthampton beyond the river, with the rising hills of western Hampshire and eastern Berkshire still further beyond. At the left Mount Holyoke and Tom crowned with mountain houses, and south of them the cities of Holyoke and Springfield; while still farther south across the state of

Connecticut, we believe East and West Rock may be seen under best conditions of atmosphere.

Toward the northwest Whately, Sunderland, South Deerfield, and farther on the wild country of Franklin county, while the mass of blue far beyond is the rounded top of

Greylock and the Green Mountain range of southern Vermont. Sugar Loaf, with its red sandstone cliff seems but a hillock, and farther to the right are the rounded masses of Mt.

Toby while beyond them are distant mountains in Vermont.

To the north the steeples of the two churches in Shutesbury are seen above the high land in the north part of Pelham, and beyond the church at Pelham center, New

Salem is in full view. In the same direction, Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire looms up, and farther to the east, Wachusett in this state is visible. Portions of Enfield and Prescott appear more directly east,, while far away Rutland and other western

Worcester towns can be located when the afternoon sun shines clearly upon them. To the south portions of Belchertown and Granby are not far away, but owing to the height of

“great hill” in the northern part of the former town the center of the town cannot be seen; the ranges of hills and mountains beyond are located in eastern Hampden or farther away.

Close at hand the eye rests upon forest or young growth of trees with now and then a

35 farm-house; probably more of the tract now known as Pelham and purchased by the stern old Scotch-Irish Presbyterians of John Stoddard of Northampton can be seen here that from any other pint. The tract went by the name of Stoddardtown at the time of the purchase in 1739 but three years later it was incorporated under the name of Pelham.

Almost the first thing these rigid orthodox settlers did after the town was laid out and their tracts of 100 acres drawn by lot, was to commence building a church, and the edifice is still standing near the church seen northeast of the town, being now used as a town hall, though 150 years old; and behind it is the old burying ground, where beneath the quaint moss grown stones the first settlers rest.

Two miles east from Pelham center down in the “hollow” by the west branch of the Swift river, is the very quiet place where rebellion against state authority was instigated in 1786-7 by Daniel Shays, whose home was near by, and not far from the old

Conkey tavern which he made his headquarters.

Through the liberality of public spirited citizens of Northampton, Belchertown and Amherst, this elevated spot of land on which is said signal fires were burned at the breaking out of the Revolutionary war, and where the government established a station while making a survey of the state, has been made accessible to the public; --even the very steps of the tower can be reached by carriage without weariness or danger.

To all who visit Mt. Lincoln the failure of the foregoing attempt to describe the beauty and extent of the landscape there outspread will be painfully evident.

C.O.P. AMHERST, July 16, 1889

36 From: Joshua V. H. Clark “Onondaga or Reminiscences of Earlier and Later Times” Vol. 2, [Syracuse: Stoddard and Babcock, 1849] pp. 294-296, Marcellus, Onondaga County, N. Y.

Rachel Baker—Perhaps the most remarkable case of devotional somniuum on record, is that of Miss Rachel Baker, formerly of this town. A full history of her case may be found in the Transactions of the Physico-Medical Society of New York, vol. 1, p.

395.

Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell in describing her case, and who gave it a thorough investigation, thus remarks. “The latter of these remarkable affections of the human mind, somnium reloigione, belongs to miss Rachel Baker, who for several years has been seized with somnium of a religious character, once a day with great regularity. These daily paroxysms recur with wonderful exactness, and from long prevalence have become habitual. They invade her at early bed time, and a fit usually lasts three-quarters of an hour. A paroxysm has been known to end in thirty-five minut4es, and to continue ninety- eight. The transition from a waking state, to that of somnium, is very quick, frequently in fifteen minutes, and sometimes even less. After she retires from company, in the parlor, she is discovered to be occupied in praising God with a distinct and sonorous voice. Her discourses are usually pronounced in a private chamber, for the purpose of delivering them with more decorum on her own part, and with greater satisfaction to her hearers.

She has been advised to take the recumbent position. Her face being turned toward the heavens, she performs her nightly devotions with a consistency and fervor, wholly unexampled in a human being, in a state of somnium. Her body and limbs are motionless; they stir no more than the trunk and extremities of a statue; the only motion

37 the spectator perceives is that of her organs of speech, and an oratorical inclination of the head and neck, as if she was intently engaged …..an academic or theological exercise.

According to the tenor and solemnity of the address, the attendants are affected with seriousness. She commences and ends with an address to the throne of grace, consisting of proper topics of submission and reverence, of praise and thanksgiving, and of prayer for herself, her friends, the church, the nation, for enemies and the human race in general.

Between these, is her sermon of exhortation. She begins without a text, and proceeds with an even course to the end, embellishing it sometimes with fine metaphors, vivid descriptions and poetical quotations. There is a state of body felt, like groaning, sobbing, or moaning, and the distressful sound continues from two minutes to a quarter of an hour.

This agitation, however, does not wake her; it gradually subsides and passes into a sound and natural sleep, which continues during the remainder of the night. In the morning she wakes as if nothing had happened, and entirely ignorant of the scenes in which she ha acted. She declares she knows nothing of her nightly exercises, except from the information of others. With the exception of the above-mentioned agitation of the body and exercise of the mind, she enjoys perfect health. In October, 1814, Miss Baker was brought to New York by her friends, in hopes that her somnial exercises (which were considered by some of them, as owing to disease) might be the exercise of a journey, and the novelty of a large city, be removed. But none of these means produced the desired effects. Her acquaintances stated that her somnial exercises took place every night regularly, except in a few instances, when interrupted by severe sickness, from the time they commenced, in 1812. In September 1816, Dr. Spears, by a course of medical

38 treatment, particularly by the use of opium, prevented a recurrence of her nightly exercises.

The parents of Miss Baker were pious and early taught her the importance of religion; she was born at Pelham, Mass., May 29th, 1794. At the age of nine years, her parents moved with her to the town of Marcellus, from which time, she said she had strong convictions of the importance of eternal things, and the thoughts of God and eternity would make her tremble.”

By degrees, her mid became more and more agitated, and nightly had conversations in her sleep, till at length, these assumed a regular devotional and sermonisius vein, and non who ever witnessed, doubted they were the genuine fruits of penitence, piety and peace.

39 PELHAM By William S. Chaffee

The people who first settled in Pelham were of Scottish origin. They came to this country from Ireland and were commonly called Scotch-Irish though nothing was more offensive to them than the term “Irish” as applied to them. During the reign of James I, his Catholic subjects in the north of Ireland rebelled and upon the suppression of the rebellion, two million acres of land, comprising nearly all of six northern counties, came into possession of King James. His Scotch and English subjects were offered liberal inducements in the way of grants of land to leave their own country and homes and settle upon these vacated lands in the north of Ireland.

Believing that good homes could be secured in this way, large numbers of

Scotchmen of strong Presbyterian faith settled upon these lands in 1612. In their new homes they were allowed to worship according to their own faith and forms of worship, but were obliged to contribute on-tenth of their income to the support of the clergy in the established church. They also became aware of the fact that they were only tenants of the crown and could never own the lands they cultivated. They had heard of America and had learned something about it from one who had been there and returned. They desired to know more, so in the year 1718, they sent Reverend Mr. Boyd to Massachusetts to present an address to Governor Shute in which their desire to settle in New England was expressed. The address was signed by more than 200 men, nine of them ministers of the

Gospel. Among the names were John Gray, William Johnson, James Gilmore, and James

Alexander; they were among the first settlers of the town in 1739.

40 The following is a copy of the memorial as printed in Parker’s History of

Londonderry, N.H.:

“To His Excellency, the Right Honorable Collonel Samuel Suitte, Governor of New England,-- “We, whose names are Underwritten, inhabitants of ye North of Ireland, Doe in our names, and in the names of many others of our neighbors, Gentlemen, Ministers, Farmers and Tradesmen, Commissionate and appoint our trusty and well beloved friend, the Rev. Mr. William Boyd of Maeasky to the Right Honorable Collonel Samuel Suitte, Governor of New England and to assure His Excellency of our sincere and hearty inclinations to transport ourselves to that very excellent and renowned Plantation upon our obtaining from his excellency suitable encouragement. And further to act and Do in our names as his Prudence shall direct. “Given under our hands this 26th day of March, Annog Dom 1718.”

The favorable report brought back to Ireland by Mr. Boyd caused the larger part of those who had signed the above address to Governor Shute to convert their property into money and as many as 100 families embarked for Boston in five ships where they arrived in safety, August 4, 1718. They were descendants of Scotchmen who went from

Argyleshire in Scotland in 1612 and settled upon the land in Ulster County, Ireland.

It is said that a goodly portion of these people remained in Boston and, with other

Scotch pe9ople already there, organized the first Presbyterian Church with Reverend

John Moorehead as pastor. Sixteen families left in a body and finally settled at

Londonderry, New Hampshire. Others went from Boston to Worcester and settled, but later dispersed; some went farther west and purchased the tract of 16,662 ½ acres included in the towns of Pelham and Prescott from Colonel John Stoddard of

Northampton.

The lands purchased from Colonel Stoddard of Northampton were a portion of large tract known as the Equivalent Lands which for the most part included the towns of

Pelham, Belchertown, Enfield, and Ware. The designation “Equivalent Lands” was

41 adopted and applied at the time Massachusetts made a grant of the tract above-mentioned to Connecticut, as an equivalent for the towns of Woodstock, Somers, Enfield, and

Suffield in Connecticut. Through some error in surveying, they were supposed to be within the boundaries of Massachusetts for many years.

After it became certain that the southern boundary of Massachusetts was not far enough south to include these four towns and that they were in Connecticut,

Massachusetts, instead of acknowledging the error and giving up the towns, still claimed and exercised jurisdiction over them. As an offset to this claim, Massachusetts offered

Connecticut a tract of wild land equal in extent to that of the four towns named, as an equivalent.

After 65 years of controversy, 107,793 acres were granted to and accepted by

Connecticut in full satisfaction of the absurd claim. Connecticut held the legal title to the tract of equivalent lands, but it was always under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts. As early as 1716 Connecticut began selling the equivalent lands and the whole tract brought but £683 or about one farthing an acre.

A company formed in Boston of which Hon. Jonathan Belcher, former governor of the state, was a member purchased a portion of the tract. Men in Northampton also purchased some. All the money from the sales went into the funds of Yale college. After a time the people living in the four Connecticut towns threw off Massachusetts control, preferring the jurisdiction of Connecticut.

The negotiations of Robert Peibols, blacksmith, and James Thornton, yeoman, both of Worcester, was for a tract of land about three and a half miles wide and seven and three-quarters long, containing 16,662 ½ acres. Its west line was the eastern boundary of

42 Hadley (now Amherst). The tract consists mainly of two high ridges running north and south, with a great hollow lying between. In this hollow flowed the west branch of the

Swift River.

From the west side, where it borders Amherst to the top of Pelham Hill, which is a little more than six miles, the rise is about 900 feet. The old meeting house is not quite

1,200 feet above tide water, but Mount Lincoln and another elevation a little south of the center is quite 1,200 feet, while Amherst center is but 300 feet above tide level.

Articles of agreement made on October 20, 1738 between Robert Peibols and

John Thornton provided that, “whereas on the 26th day of September last, they jointly covenanted and contracted with Honorable John Stoddard of Northampton in said county of Hampshire for one fourth part of that part of Equivalent Lands Lying East of Hadley

(except eight hundred acres) which he bought of the executors of Dame Mary Saltenstall late of Boston. Also for an eight part which said John Stoddard purchased of Captain

Roswell Saltenstall of Bradford and also for an eight part which fell to or belonged to said Stoddard by division making the whole one half of said tract of land excepting Eight

Hundred part of which ye said Stoddard Purchased from the Executors of Dame Mary

Saltenstall as aforesaid…”

The first meeting of the Proprietors was held at the home of Captain Daniel

Heywood in Worcester on Monday the 26th day of February 1739, at 10 o’clock in the forenoon, and adjourned to May 1, 1739 at the same time and place. Not being able to have a full meeting, it was again adjourned to November 5. It was voted to pay for the surveying and, at a later meeting on April 15, 1740 when more money was paid for surveying, a committee of five was empowered by the proprietors to request the clerk to

43 call a warrant for a new meeting to be held on the Lisborne Property. The meeting was held August 6, 1740 at 8 o’clock in the forenoon, at the home of John Ferguson in

Lisborn, as it was then called.

It was while the Proprietors of Lisborn were absorbed with the business of settling a first minister that the legislative action took place under which the people organized the plantation as a town and began their career as the eleventh town organized west of

Worcester County.

“An act for the erecting a tract of land, commonly called New Lisborn, lying in said county of Hampshire into a township by ye name of PELHAM. Whereas there are a considerable number of families settled on a tract of land commonly called New Lisborn lying in the county of Hampshire who have represented to this court that they labour under great difficulties by reason of their not being incorporated into a township. Be it therefore enacted by the Govnr. Council and House of Representatives that the lands aforesaid be and hereby are erected into a separate distinct township by the name of PELHAM, the bounds to be as follows viz—bounded easterly on a tract of land commonly called Quabbin granted to a number of Canada and Narragansett Soldiers, Southerly on a lot of Equivalent land so called belonging to Rev. Mr. Edwards and Mrs. Rebecca Hanley,--Westerly on ye east bounds of the town of Hadley, and northerly partly on a new township commonly called Roadtown, and partly on a new township commonly called New Salem, and that ye inhabitants on ye land aforesaid be and hereby are vested with ye power, privileges and Immunitees which ye inhabitants of other towns with this province are or by law ought to be vested with, --Dec. 28, 1742.”

The first Town Meeting after incorporation was held April 19, 1743. John

Stoddard was Moderator with the following officers elected: Selectmen, Alexander

Conkey, Robert Peebles, John Alexander, John Gray, Robert Lotheridge. Town Clerk, W illiam Gray. Treasurer, John Stinson: Surveyors, James Taylor, John Conkey, John

Johnson, Ephraim Cowan, --Tythingmen, Andrew Maklem, James McConel: Constables,

George Cowan, James Hood; Fence Viewers, Thomas Hamilton, Alexander Tower.

Hogreeves, William Conkey, John Blair. Assessors, William Gray, Samuel Gray, and

44 William Croset. “Officers to prosecute ye law respecting killing deer, Robert Maklem,

John Lacore. Officers to prosecute ye law about burning woods, John Hamilton, Hugh

Gray.”

The next matter of business after incorporation was to call a minister. The meeting house being near completion, the first Minister called was Reverend Robert

Abercrombie. There was some opposition, but he served 12 years. After his dismissal by the Presbytery, there was no settled minister for nine years. During this period, the town was taken to court for not having a settled minister and after about a year, they called

Reverend Richard Crouch Graham in 1763.

In 1786, after a long contest, the people living east of the west branch of the Swift

River were successful in securing passage of an act of incorporation through the legislature for a second parish,, called Prescott. The act passed both hoses and was signed by Governor James Bowdoin January 28, 1786.

In 1822, the Church was divided into the congregational Church and the

Calvinistic Church, with the Congregational Church erecting a new building.

Eseck Cook, a Quaker from Cumberland, R.I. came to town in 1806 and was instrumental in getting a Quaker Meeting House built in 1808, which was used for many years.

In 1831 a petition was addressed to the first Baptist Church of Belchertown for permission to organize a district society of the Baptist denomination in Packardville. The request was granted and a society organized and a church built, which prospered for about thirty years. Then it was disbanded and a Union Congregational Society was

45 formed on December 4, 1868. This church served the community until the building was bought by the Metropolitan District Water Commission in 1935.

In the early part of the year 1831, Reverend Isaac Stoddard, a member of the New

England Methodist Conference, was invited to preach to Pelham and reappointed in 1832. others were appointed to preach in Pelham, but several attempts to build a church failed, and they still continued to use the old meeting house. Augustus Webster donated a site on which to build and, through the efforts of Reverend James O. Dean, the pastor, the meeting house was built and dedicated in the fall of 1840. It was used until June 8, 1959, when it was purchased by the United church of Pelham.

In 1744, the town voted to have school kept for two months and by 1746 the school year was increased to six months. The one-room district schools scattered through the town have been consolidated into two two-room buildings. The latest of these, built in 1934 on the west side of Pelham Hill, was the gift of John Rhodes to his native town, and is known as the Rhodes School. Pelham never had a high school, but is now linked with Amherst, Shutesbury, and Leverett in a Regional High School.

A hundred years ago, pupils might attend a select school of one fall term, frequently held in the old Meeting House. Minor Gold, who was often the teacher, holds a unique place in Pelham school history. Living on a back road in Pelham he was nevertheless diligently sought out by Amherst College students in need of tutoring., He not only taught the select school, where he was in his best form, but often the regular district school. Small children went home early, but the big boys often stayed until for or five o’clock.

46 Certain citizens of the north part of Belchertown became desirous of becoming inhabitants of Pelham, embodying their desires in a petition which was presented to the voters of Pelham assembled June 21, 1786.

“The Petition of a number of Inhabitants of North Belchertown Humbly Showeth that we Request you would put an article in your next Warrant for Town Meeting to see if your town will vote to receive said Petitioners together with all lands described in said petition viz –So far south and east as Mr. Jacob Edson’s south and east line and so far south and west as the south and west Range of Wm. Jedediah Ayers land and we, your petitioners as in duty bound shall ever pray. To the Selectmen of Pelham, --Francis Stratton, John Woods, Jedediah Ayers, John Barrus, Thomas Thornton, John Stratton, David Comet, John Wright. We, the subscribed jointly and severally agree and covenant with the town of Pelham provided they vote to receive said petitioners or subscribes that we, our heirs executors or Administrators will never vote to remove said Pelham Meeting House from the place where it now stands, as witness our hands, --Francis Stratton, John Barrus, Thomas Thurston, John Woods, Jedediah Ayers, Jr., John White.”

The above petition was considered and it was voted to Receive to the town of

Pelham a number of Inhabitants of Belchertown with their lands as set forth in their petition.

Another change was made in the town on January 28, 1822, when the East Parish was incorporated into the town of Prescott, with the west branch of the Swift River as the dividing line, causing a drop in the population—which had grown from 371 in 1765 to

1,268 in 1820, falling to 486 in 1895, then rising in the 1860 census to 805. With the loss of Prescott, and the land taken by the Metropolitan Water Commission, Pelham now has

7,468.73 acres left of the original 16, 662½ acres.

Many of our roads have been discontinued and almost all those remaining are hard-surfaced; Route 202, running from Maine to Florida, runs on our eastern border and is maintained by the State.

47 After many meetings and resolutions a meeting of Free holders and other inhabitants of the town of Pelham assembled on Thursday, June 12, 1776. “Voted by unanimous vote that we are willing to come under independency from under the yoke of the King of Great Britain, provided the Continental Congress see fit in their wisdom to establish Independence in the colonies for their safety.” To the War of the American

Revolution Pelham sent 140 men for longer or shorter service.

A few years after the Revolution, another important event took place in Pelham:

Shay’s Rebellion. Time and space do not allow a complete record of this event, which may be found in C. O. Parmenter’s History of Pelham. It must be remembered that these men had just fought a war with Great Britain for independence and for relief from taxes, only to find themselves taxed to pay for it. The men had been away at war and were burdened with heavy mortgages, which their creditors were eager to collect. The disliked paying interest on their own and the national debt. They said interest is a cankerworm that consumed their substance without lessening their burdens.

Daniel Shays was born in Hopkinton. In 1747 the family moved to Great

Barrington. When he settled in Pelham is not know, but he was there when the Lexington alarm was sent out. He joined a company of Minute Men under Captain Reuben

Dickinson of Amherst. He was promoted for bravery at the Battle of bunker Hill. He was with Colonel Ruggles’ Woodbridge Regiment at Ticonderoga in 1776, appointed

Lieutenant in Colonel Farnum’s regiment in 1776, and detached on recruiting service, enlisted a company which he took to West Point, whose engagement to serve was conditioned on his being appointed captain. He was not appointed Captain and the men were apportioned to different corps. Shays was at the surrender of Burgoyne and at the

48 storming of Stony Point. In 1779 he received a Captain’s commission and was with

Colonel Putnam’s regiment at Newark, N.J., in 1780, when he resigned and left the service, returning to Pelham soon after.

On March 9, 1781, Captain Shays was chosen a member of the committee of

Safety at Pelham and chosen again in 1782 when the committee was directed to attend the county Convention. He was Town Warden for several years and held that office the year the insurrection broke out.

It was at Conkey’s Tavern that Captain Shays met the people who came to talk over their grievances with him. As the mutterings grew louder Captain shays was chosen to drill the men in the use of arms. A committee of seventeen insurgents was appointed to raise and organize a force of men in Hampshire county. Among the members were

Captain Shays of Pelham and captain Billings of Amherst. The enrollment went on until large numbers of men in many of the towns were drawn in who were determined to stop the courts from sitting in the belief that, if they could stop court sessions, they would stop the entry of suits for debt by impatient creditors. The insurgents took possession of the courthouses in Middlesex County and in Worcester and Great Barrington They were also determined to stop the court at Springfield, but the Governor had ordered out the militia under General Shepard who got there first and took possession of the courthouse.

Captain Shays arrived with more 600 insurgents and sent a request to the judge that none of the late rioters who were under arrest be indicted. The court did little business and after three days adjourned.

Shays was determined to take possession of the barracks and marched his men to within 250 yards when General Shepard ordered his men to fire. The first two shots were

49 fired over their heads, but the third shot was aimed at the center of the advancing column with deadly effect. There was a cry of “Murder,” and the men retreated in confusion, leaving three dead and one wounded.

Shays joined forces with Eli Persons at Chicopee the next day, but the arrival of

General Lincoln prevented another attack by Shays’ men. General Lincoln crossed the

Connecticut River on the ice after Captain Day and his men, but they had fled in confusion toward Northampton. On the 28th, General Lincoln started his march after

Shays, who had retreated toward Amherst. Arriving in Amherst with a good lead, but knowing Lincoln was not far behind, Shays pushed on toward Pelham. A short time after

Shays’ men had left Amherst, ten sleigh loads of provisions from Belchertown came to

East Amherst and the men stopped to feed their horses at the tavern kept by Oliver Clapp.

Clapp, knowing that General Lincoln was in pursuit of Shays’ men and that the men were nearly famished, told those in charge of the provisions not to stop, but to push on the

Pelham before they were gobbled up by Lincoln. The teams hurried on after Shays and the famished men got the provisions, thanks to landlord Clapp who was a personal friend of Shays.

General Lincoln arrived in Amherst later in the day and, learning that Shays and his men were in Pelham, decided to pursue them further that day. The people, mostly women and children, looking to the west, saw a most unusual sight that afternoon of

January 28, 1787. Struggling along that untrodden road were 1,100 armed men, footsore and weary, toiling up the hill. No such sight was ever witnessed before and never since that day has so large a body been seen in town. Shays they knew, also their husbands, sons, and brothers, but the men from Middlesex, Worcester, and Berkshire they did not

50 know. They were halted on the common in front of the Pelham Meeting House where some camped and the others pushed on to the top of East Hill. They were quartered there from January 28 to February 3. Doubtless the ten loads of provisions sent them helped make their stay agreeable.

Several communications were exchanged between General Lincoln and Captain

Shays. The terse answer of General Lincoln, not satisfying the committee, a conference was held at Hadley. Not waiting for the answer, Shays called his men together and retreated farther to Petersham. Lincoln learning that Shays was moving his men, started from Hadley the night of February 3 at 8 o’clock and marched through Amherst,

Shutesbury, and New Salem. By the time they reached New Salem, a severe snowstorm was in progress. In spite of the bitter cold and snow they kept on, and arrived in

Petersham at 9 o’clock in the morning of February 4. Shays was taken by surprise and his only thought to be for his own safety. He and his men left the houses where they were quartered, thronged into a back road and fled toward Athol. Many of the privates retired to their own homes, others, including officers, fled to Vermont, New Hampshire and New York.

The state had no desire to execute the extreme penalties, so a commission was appointed consisting of General B. Lincoln, the Hon. Samuel Phillips, and the Hon.

Samuel Allen Otis for granting indemnity to benefits; however, 12 were convicted of treason and sentenced to death. Seven or eight were extended a free pardon by the

Governor, April 30, 1787, and a reprieve granted to others the following June. Shays and

Persons sued for pardon in February 1788, which was granted Shays the following June.

51 The population of the town in 1860 was 748, but the number of men between 18 and 45 on the rolls for military duty was only 100, seventy-five of whom saw active duty in the civil War. Several were in the Spanish-American War in the Philippines. The first

World War took 28 and the second World War took 75 if our men. Today we still have seven in the armed forces.

The town’s largest industry was a fish rod shop which started in a very small way.

C. D. Gray as a boy was so dissatisfied with the fish rods he was able to buy that he decided to make his own in is father’s mill. After some experimenting, he produced such good rods that his neighbors began buying them. His father became interested, and together they established the business in 1858. After C. D. Gray died in 1873, the business changed hands several times until it was taken over by the Montague City Rod

Company. At one time it employed about 60 people.

Many smaller industries have existed at times, getting their power from the streams. There have been several saw mills and a bobbin factory in the Hollow. Wagons were made in Packardville in 1840 by Joel Packard and John Thurston. Ezra Brown constructed red coffins for a while. Ploughs were made be John Parmenter in 1840. The

Grays had tanneries in the Valley. A woolen mill was once located on King Street. Mill stones, carding and dyeing, faucets, bedsteads and barrel staves have all been made in

Pelham.

Nor should we forget the scythe shop in the ravine above the Orient. Here

William Smith Otis hammered away as a boy. William Smith Otis was born in Pelham

September 20, 1813, the son of Isaac and Tryphina Smith Otis. He came of good old

Revolutionary stock, both of his grandparents having been soldiers in the Revolutionary

52 Army and his maternal grandfather having lived and died in Pelham. After working in his father’s shop he became engaged in railroad construction and while living in

Philadelphia, invented and patented the steam shovel about 1836. He used the first shovel, or excavator as it was called, on a contract with the B & O Railroad somewhere in Maryland and the second time near Springfield, on the B & A Railroad in 1837-38.

Mr. Otis was the first person to hang a shovel on a revolving crane and was the progenitor of a large class of dredges used in excavating hard material. His shovels have been used by many railroads, some were shipped to Russia, one sold to the Peruvian government. The French and Germans have also built and used many of them.

William S. Otis, while engaged in the const5ruction of a portion of the Boston &

Providence Railroad, married Elizabeth Everett, daughter of a merchant of Canton, Mass.

On June 23, 1835. They had two daughters and one son. The son and one daughter died young and the eldest, Helen, married John Dunbar of Canton. Mr. Otis died in Westfield,

November 13, 1839, at the age of 26.

Pelham was one of the first towns in the state to elect a woman to the board of selectmen—Mrs. Grace Kimball, who served for fifteen years.

Pelham has seen many changes in its years of existence, but the desire of the early settlers to own their own homes prevails to the present day With the automobile and good roads, we can travel to other communities to work but, for a home to live in,, there is no place like Pelham with its fresh air, good neighbors, and the beauty of its hills.

53 A HISTORIC SKETCH OF PELHAM By Elinor Genung Allen – 1946

Pelham is a hilly town. It is not laid out in lush and level acres like the valley towns to the west, but climbs steeply over rocky ridges to the peak on Pelham Hill. A man who takes his living from the land must have the will to work. And the men who brought Pelham into existence had indeed some of its rock-ribbed sternness in their own stout hearts. These were Scotchmen living in Northern Ireland, on land the property of the British Crown. They had in them the hunger for acres of their own, rooted in their own way of life; and they looked at the New World across the water. In 1718 a small group sent a representative to Governor Shute of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to inform his Excellency that they wished to settle in New England; and so on receiving due encouragement approximately one hundred families embarked, later in the same year, for

Boston. It was not till twenty years later, however, that the land was actually bought. In

1738 Robert Peebles, a blacksmith, and James Thornton, a yeoman, purchased fm

Colonel John Stoddard of Northampton seventeen thousand acres of what were known as the Equivalent Lands, comprising the territory later to become the towns of Enfield,

Ware, Belchertown, Pelham and Prescott. The newly landed proprietors met in

Worcester, and plans were made to lay out lots and roads, build a meeting house, and settle a minister. The settlement was first known as Lisborne; some of the proprietors had come from a town of that name in North Ireland. But when it was incorporated into a township in 1743, in compliment to Lord Henry Pelham who was visiting Massachusetts at the time it was named Pelham.

54 These early settlers brought no great wealth to their new home, but they brought good Scotch thrift and they could work. Shiftlessness was something they heartily disliked and they would have none of it in Pelham. They carefully scrutinized all newcomers before permitting them to settle in the town, to make sure they were of a physical and moral stoutness likely to earn their own living and not become a charge on the community. And any who did not come up to the mark in this respect were marched to the town limits and urged to go elsewhere. They instituted the somewhat drastic custom of auctioning off to the highest bidder any many who found himself unable to meet his taxes till he had worked them out. This might well discourage anyone who hoped to maintain himself at the expense of fellow citizens. Their thrift extended even to the economy of names. . . John Grey, William Johnson, James Taylor, James Hood--they saw no reason to waste ink by inscribing long names on their records, or to burden their children with them. The founding spirit liked to be unencumbered.

The town was still young and struggling when the Revolution was fought. War brought taxes and levies and ended, as wars still do, with debt. Veterans found themselves paying a high cost for the independence they had won; their farms were run down, their families were poverty-pinched; their stock and land and goods were confiscated in payment of debts they could not meet because they had no money. Some of them were thrown in Northampton jail. But one citizen of Pelham was moved to revel.

Daniel Shays, a warden of the town, had been a captain in the Revolution. He suffered as others did in the depression that followed it. And in his eyes the remedy lay in preventing the courts from issuing judgments against them. He and his followers met in

Conkey’s Tavern over in the Hollow to plan their rebellion. Fifty towns sent delegations

55 to the meeting held in Hatfield in 1786, at which a long list of grievances was drawn up.

Nothing came of their protest, and finally the impoverished people resorted to force. The rebels stopped sessions of the courts in Worcester, Hampden and Hampshire counties, but came to grief when they tried to seize he Springfield arsenal. The rebels fled to their homes, and Daniel Shays, who was considered guilty of treason, disappeared. He was pardoned two years later, and died a respectable citizen in 1824. Memorials to him are the marker at Pelham Hill, the Daniel Shays Highway, and certain remedial changes in the state laws following the rebellion he organized.

Even before the town was really started a meeting house was planned for. The money to build one could not be forthcoming all at once, but had to be raised piecemeal, and the building took three years to complete. After it was done it served not only as a church but also as a town meeting place where elections were held and town affairs administered. Walter Dyer’s description of it in his book, Springs of Hemlock cannot be bettered:--“It is not a beautiful building, being devoid of ornament and uncompromisingly plain, like the lives of the Scotch Presbyterians who built it, but there is a staunch and venerable solidity about it that seems to make a more elaborate style of architecture out of place. It stands honestly foursquare to the winds of heaven.” And in that plain building Pelham always had, and still has, its town meetings. The first minister to occupy the high pulpit was the scholarly Mr., Abercrombie from Edinburgh, Scotland.

The second was Rev. Nathaniel Merrill, and succeeding him came that notorious and romantic fraud, and impostor, Stephen Burroughs.. He was the son of a Dartmouth

College preacher. At the age of nineteen, armed with ten sermons stolen from is father, he passed himself off as a minister and preached for nineteen Sundays under the name of

56 Davis. Some suspicion as to the real authorship of the sermons awoke in certain members of the congregation . . . mostly male members, the ladies seemed more susceptible to the spell of his engaging rascal . . . and to test him they gave him a text as he entered the church, and asked him to preach on it. That sermon, “Old Shoes and

Clouted on their Feet” became famous far beyond the limits of Pelham, and the listeners, awed by his eloquence were quieted for a time. But his conduct, at times anything but ministerial, eventually exposed him, and young Mr., Burroughs left town hastily and without formal farewells.

The churches of Pelham have had their ups and downs. The township was unwieldy I size and structure with its hills and hollows. Little groups clustered together more and more independently. In the early years of the 1800s everything seemed to boil at once. The Hollow east of Pelham Hill broke off completely and formed the town of

Prescott. The south group, in Packardville wanted a church of their own. The original

Presbyterian church had already split into Calvanist and Congregational factions, neither of which really flourished; during these years of activity the Congregational branch revived to the extent of building a new church near the original meeting house. This new church had a very beautiful interior; the woodwork was painted white, there were little doors on the pews with buttons on the outside, there was a gracefully curved gallery at the back and the high pulpit from the old meeting house at the front. A particularly prosperous time in its career followed the appointment of Rev. William Dowden, in 1863. among other activities a Ladies’ Society and Sewing Circle was formed, with an impressive constitution, to which “females over 12 and males over 15” might belong.

57 The records carry the names of seen males. One wonders whether they did any of the heavy work or merely appeared in time for refreshments.

In the earlier years of the Congregational Church no home was provided for the minister, but in 1867 the church voted to build a parsonage and the money to buy the lot was given to one of the members. He did nothing about it, and after some time elapsed one deacon was instructed to write a formal letter demanding the money back. He in his turn let the matter slide until he had been prodded several times with increasing sharpness. Then he wrote the delinquent, explaining at great length his delay in the matter, ending with the pious plea: “I know I am not very prompt in business, but may our heavenly father, in whose hands are our several destinies, grant and so order events that I may not always be behindhand.”

The Baptist church in Packardville was established as a branch of the Baptist

Church of Christ in Belchertown, which the people in that section had been attending.

The building was erected in 1831. But as time went on there were hardly enough

Baptists to support a church in this neighborhood. There is this entry in the old Baptist records: “There having been efforts made by individuals to form a new church or Union

Church, the church having been called together again to see whether they will vote to disband the old church when the new is formed, after considerable conversation upon the subject voted: --this church to be dissolved at the instant of formation of the new church”

. . . which was duly organized in 1859. This building was burned down while undergoing repairs in 1869 and was rebuilt, with a bell, presented by a class in Amherst College. It was a center of the Packardville community till it was purchased by the Metropolitan

Water commission of Boston in 1935. The proceeds of the sale were presented to the

58 congregational Conference as the Packardville Fund; the interest from this fund helped to carry on the present church work in town.

A Methodist Society was formed in West Pelham in 1831. A pastor, Rev. Isaac

Stoddard, came to minister to the congregation and services were held about at different houses. The present building was erected during the yeas 1839-1843. In June, 1936 all the churches of Pelham united to form the Pelham Federated Church, and the Methodist property, centrally located at West Pelham, became the home of the new organization.

At one time there was a Society of Friends in town. This flourished for a few years and was gone leaving the little cemetery on the slope of the hill above the Amherst reservoir as its only memorial. Here, in accordance with their belief, only field stones were allowed to mark the resting place of these sturdy Quakers.

The urge for land ownership and self government goes hand in hand with the desire for self betterment. As early as 1744 the town voted that a school be kept for two months, one month in the home of Ephraim Cowan, now the Bray place, and one month in that of William Grey. By 1746 the school year had been increased to six months and the modest sum of 36£ raised for its support. The town has since had many different schools located in many almost forgotten places; tiny one-room buildings, sublimely ignorant of modern sanitation. Today there are two schools. The latest school building, the Rhodes School on the west side of Pelham Hill, built in 1934 as the gift of John

Rhodes to his native town, would be in sharp contrast to some of these earlier structures.

Pelham has never had a high school; today advanced pupils take the bus to Amherst,, but one hundred years ago they might attend a “Select School” of one fall term, frequently held in the old meeting house. Minor Gold was often the teacher in charge. Minor Gold

59 holds a unique place in Pelham school history. Living on a back road between Pelham

Hill and Packardville, he was nevertheless diligently sought out by Amherst College students in need of tutoring. He not only taught the Select School, where he was in his best form, but as often the regular district school. Here, with his feet on the desk and his clay pipe between his teeth, he aught. Small children were sent home early, but the big boys found their days lengthened. Four o’clock, five o’clock, and Minor Gold was still leading through bewildering problems. He had his peculiarities, but he was, as the old

Scotch settlers would have said, “a man of parts.”

It was not only in roads and schools hat sections of the town functioned separately. Every group was responsible for roads in their district, and for seeing that they were if possible open to navigation in time for town meeting. Tax collections and other town affairs were administered by sections, and there was occasional rivalry, not always good natured, between factions. In at least one case an indignant citizen rose in tow meeting to move that a sum of money be appropriated “to fence in the Hawgs in

West Pelham,” who, he considered were getting more than their share of the town appropriations.

While the town has never been industrial in character, some of its industries have been of real interest. The fish rod factory started from humble beginnings when C. D.

Grey, as a boy, dissatisfied with the rods he was able to buy, experimented on his own and produced such good rods that his neighbors were glad to buy them. He and his father established the business about 1858; later it was sold to Ward and Latham, then to

Leander and Eugene Bartlett; then Eugene Bartlett became sole owner, and finally the

Montague City Rod Company took ownership. It was to Eugene Bartlett that the greatest

60 4expansion was due. Stories are still told of his business ability and his warmly human qualities. At one time the factory employed about sixty people. Then the work was gradually shifted to other plants till one factory building, the dam, the pond where the children swim in summer, and many memories are all of the business that now remains in town.

Two other industries were stone quarrying and asbestos mining. The largest quarry, on the farm now owned by R. D. Ewing, supplied much of the stone for the building of Amherst College. The Jones Library was built of Pelham stone. The uses of the asbestos mined are more obscure and the mine is no longer worked, but at one time quite a crew was employed. They lived in the old Ziba Cook tavern, the house now occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Kimball. The young foreman one morning set his bundle of dynamite near the stove to thaw while he passed the time of day with his hostess. The dynamite, left to itself, became animated, and in the ensuing explosion a stove lid carried away the top of the lady’s head; a miscarriage of justice.

Charcoal burning was once important. Acres of woodland were cut over, and the four-foot wood piled into cone shaped pits, covered with sod, and left to smoulder for several days. The charcoal was carried by ox team to the brass works in Haydenville, or to the Springfield Armory. In 1862 brick kilns were built in the Hollow, where the charcoal was burned more economically and on a larger scale.

The braiding of straw hats was a home industry. At first homegrown rye straw was used; later, palm leaf was imported from Cuba, and nearly every family in town went into the business. Some of the more expert workers turned out very fine women’s hats and bonnets, in a variety of patterns. A bobbin factory gave the name of Bobbin Hollow

61 to that part of town; wagon manufacturing by Joel Packard gave the name of Packardville to the south-east corner; ploughs, coffins, wagon wheels, barrel staves, all had their day; and in a scythe shop just above the Orient, boy named James Smith Otis hammered away, to such good effect hat he later achieved fame by inventing the steam shovel.

Some of the town roads were stagecoach routes to other arts of the state. On these, coaching taverns were built, where the horses were changed, and travelers could rest and refresh themselves: Conkey’s Tavern in the Hollow, and Kingman’s Tavern on

Pelham Hill were coaching inns. An old resident of the town remembered taking eggs up to the Kingman Tavern in her youth, and seeing the ladies and gentlemen walking up and down while waiting for fresh horses to be put in the stagecoach The ladies had considerable difficulty maneuvering their hoop skirts into the coach! Pictures of town residents taken about that time show many of the men sitting very straight and stiff in new Grand Army uniforms. Their wives usually stand modestly behind, one admitting hand on a stalwart shoulder.

From 1853-1881 there was a thriving hotel at Orient Springs. The proprietor advertised that “the Orient Springs Health Institute is located near the town of Amherst,

Mass. For the treatment and cure of Paralysis in all its forms, Spinal Diseases, contracted cords and limbs; Crooked Hands; and Feet; Enlarged Joints, Wry Necks; curvatures of the spine, Hip Disease, Rikets, St. Vitus Dance, and all Deformities, Neuralgia,

Rheumatism and all Lameness; Nervous Disease, Gout, Convultions; Diseases of the

Brain, heart Lungs; hysteria, etc.”

62 In 1901 an electric carline was built and operated from Amherst and the Orient became a popular spot for picnickers. Whether they brought enlarged joints, wry necks, and convultions with them for treatment is not recorded.

The little white building at the West Pelham crossroads, once a district school, has also been a social center. Dances have been held there, with Virginia Reel or Old Zip

Coon stepped to the music of accordion, fiddle or piano, and the “caller” crying out the figures. Money has been raised for good causes by public suppers of good Pelham cooking. And for many years Pelham has had its own baseball team, in rivalry with neighbor towns. But for many people its trout brooks and woods and winding roads are in themselves cause for contentment.

An important change in the anatomy of the town has been brought about by the taking of thousands of acres in the eastern part of the watershed of the Quabbin

Reservoir. Good Pelham water quenches the thirst of Boston, and the eastern slope of

Pelham Hill is mirrored in a growing lake beneath whose waters the neighbor towns of

Enfield and Prescott are for all time lost. An equally important change has been wrought socially and economically over a period of years. There are few large farms left in town, and no small home industries; the factories of the Connecticut valley have drained the labor from them,, and the good roads and modern cars have opened further fields which earlier could not have been reached. The shops, banks, offices of Amherst, and its two colleges, offer employment to many Pelham people. Professors and professional men from Amherst and the adjacent towns have bought summer places and permanent homes in Pelham. So it becomes more and more a place to come at the end of day.

But the sturdy core that was the essential Pelham has not changed so very much.

63 Though many names that were on the first Pelham records have ceased to appear, houses planned and built by the first comers still shelter happy families. Whether a man fought for freedom carrying a Revolutionary musket or flying a bomber, he was still part of American history. Perhaps it is history itself that has changed and broadened to embrace not only America by the world. In the war just over, Pelham men carried

American arms to the farthest places; marched the streets of Tokyo and Berlin, flew the

Pacific and the Himalayas, dropped anchor in Singapore and Cherbourg and Soerabaja.

These are the men who will have in their hands the future of Pelham. Let them be wise, for it is also in thousand-fold the future of America and the world.

64 LIFE IN WEST PELHAM, MASSACHUSETTS FROM 1892 TO 1918

By Harry W. Allen

I have in my library a 500-page history of Pelham published by C. O. Parmenter in 1898 Some day there will probably be a publication covering the period from 1898 onward. I was well acquainted with the west end of the town from about 1900 to 1918.

It has occurred to me that a typed manuscript covering this period might someday be of value in compiling such a record.

Farmers of Pelham. During the period from 1900 to 1918 there were struck a number of subsistence farms in the town. John Page, located on the Valley Road just west of the Buffam Brook, was a well known citizen. For many years he was moderator of the annual town meeting. He was a skilled hunter of grouse, so abundant in the town at that time. He was master of the fiddle and a caller of square dances much in demand.

He was also father of a large family. The girls married and lived locally. Herman, the second son, was also an enthusiastic fisherman and hunter. At Amherst High School, he was class president, catcher on the high school team, and later in life became president of the Amherst Savings Bank and principal supporter of the Scarborough sportsman’s farm of the Amherst Country Club.

Farther up the Valley Road, on the south side and between the Buffam Brook and the Valley Cemetery was the small farm of Benjamin Page. His son, Robert, was the only Pelham man killed in World War I.

65 A short distance off the Valley Road on the Gates Road, there lived for several years, an author, W. A. Dyer, whose best known book, Chronicles of a Countryman1 was about Pelham and his neighbors, only thinly disguised by fictional names.

On what used to be the end of Arnold Road which branches off the Amherst Road at the top of what was known as Smith Hill. Was the farm of Bert Harris who maintained quite a herd of dairy cattle. His pastures were always well loaded with high-bush blueberry and huckleberry bushes. His son, Fred, inherited the farm and became one of the principal town officials.

At the crest of the hill where the Pelham flat begins and on the north side of the road was the Boynton Place. Mrs. Boynton was killed in an accident at the crossing of the Central Vermont Railroad and the Pelham road early in the 1900s. The house passed to the possession of the son, Ted, who married Ida, daughter of John Page.

On the Amherst Road close to the pond now called the Hawley reservoir was the

John Hawley place. The Hawleys owned a small farm and had a large family of children.

Far up the Buffam Brook Road was the farm of John Brewer, long a member of the school committee and prime supporter of the West Pelham Methodist Church.

Eugene Bartlett, part owner of the Montague Fishing rod Company, while not a farmer, owned several scattered properties, on which there were mowing lots, and from which he cut the grass crops. One of the largest was located on both sides of Harkness

Road.

On the Harkness Road and at the junction with the South Valley Road was the old

Jewett house and farm. At the time covered by this account it was owned by Charles (?)

Jewett. He had two daughters, Florence and Ida.

1 Dyer’s book was published in 1928, somewhat later than the period covered by this report.

66 On the South Valley Road, lying on both sides of the road was the farm of

Charles Ward. There were three daughters and one son in this family: Sally married

Frederick Shepard, a long time Pelham resident and postmaster of Amherst; Lora, for many years was in the administrative office of the State University; Mary Belle, who married Bertram Page, youngest son of John Page, was in a serious automobile accident in which her husband was killed; Charles was for many years an employee and officer of the National Bank of Amherst.

On the west side of the Gulf Road, not fat from its junction with the Amherst road was the farm of Smith (?) Thornton. His two sons were Victor and Sidney, one or both veterans of World War I.

A short distance south on this road and on the east side was the Ramsdell place, certainly one of the best farms in the town. Since it drained directly into the Hawley

Reservoir of the Amherst Water Company, the property was acquired by them and the house and buildings removed.

On the Gulf Road, not far from its junction with the Butter Hill Road was the

Burroughs Farm. According to Parmenter history, the Burrough’s home was operated from 1825 to 1835 as Zibaa Cook’s Tavern. During the period of this account, the house was one of the largest in town.

Not far from the Belchertown on the Gulf Road was the farm owned by the

Newells for three generations. During the early 1900s it was owned by Esther Newell

Allen and farmed by her son, Henry Allen. Back of the farm buildings there occurs a vein of asbestos. A son-in-law, William Larned, tried to develop this in the 1890s, but the asbestos proved too inferior to be marketable. The great quantities of mica unearthed

67 had no market value, and the corundum modules in the mica were not abundant enough to be of much value. It passed from the Newell-Allen families to Frank Turcotte and became a well-known turkey farm. The original farm buildings and house burned and were replaced. At the end of the Butter Hill Road was another farm owned by Esther

Newell Allen. This was bequeathed to her son, Myron Allen, who transformed it into a successful fruit and poultry farm.

There follows an enumeration of other Pelham residents of this period outside the fishing rod community The Brocks owned a home on the Valley Road, about where it emerges from the steep climb about the base of Mt. Orient. There were several sons who worked at several jobs in and around Pelham and Amherst. I can recall only one by name, Alfred. Residing on the West Pelham flat at some time during this period were the following people: Well down on the Amherst Road near the crest of Smith Hill and on the south side was the home of Clarence Thornton. On the same side and not far from the intersection with the Gulf Road was the home of Lyman W. Allen. On the north side of the Amherst Road and well toward the western end of the flat was the Boynton place2 previously described. Eastward on the same side was the Whipple place occupied for several years by Leon Merritt, his wife and three children—Harold, Doris and Mildred.

Eastward was the house occupied by Mrs. Miller and later by the Campbells who operated a bakery there. Eastward of the Millers and opposite the Allen place lived John

Ward and his wife. He wandered off one dark night and was never again seen alive.

Several years later his skeleton was found in the woods several miles from his home.

2 According to Parmenter, there were both Boydens and Boyntons living in Pelham. However, my wife who had a grandchild in her school and my sister, L. M. Allen, say that the family mentioned here were Boydens.

68 Just across the intersection and east of the church was the home of William Robinson and his three children—Frieda, Anne and Raymond.

On the west side of the Dwight Road between its junction with the Enfield Road and the Esther Allen place lived an ancient couple, “Ezic” Cook and his wife.

Harkness Road. This principal residential street of Pelham was named by

Frederick Shepard, at the time he built on this street in the early 1900s. It was named in honor of the Harknesses, who once owned a large farm on this road, where the Jewetts lived at the time of this account. At 1905 there were no residences on this road between the Anderson place at the junction with the Amherst Road and the Jewett place, about a mile to the south. This area was convenient to the trolley line to Amherst; it was served by a small water main traversing the Anderson property from east to west; the ancient stone walls provided good material for basement walls and the gravel subsoil was suitable for building satisfactory cesspools.

About 1905. G. W. Towne and daughter Mable bought the Anderson property at the northern end of the flat and built the first modern home on that road. This was soon followed by the home of L. W. Allen and W. C.; Towne on the same side of the road and a short distance to the south. This property was sold sometime before World

War I and has since been known as the Hamilton place. The next house to be built on

Harkness Road was that of Frederic Shepard. It was situated opposite the Allen-Towne property on what had been pasture belonging to E. P. Bartlett. It was occupied by Mr.

Shepard, his first wife, and son, Howell. Mrs. Shepard died soon after coming to her new home. Howell, in later years, became one of the important officials of the state of New

Hampshire. W. C. Towne built and occupied a second house adjacent to the Shepard

69 property on the north. On the south side of the Shepard’s, another place was built and occupied by the Lolly’s. After living in Amherst a few years, L. W. Allen built a small retirement home between the Towne and Hamilton places.

Amherst Road near the fishing rod factory. On the north side, near the

Amherst line, was the home of Eugene Ward and his wife, Dorothy, Daughter of John

Page. In the two-flat house to the east at the edge of the steep incline down to Amethyst

Brook lived a Mr. Wells. This was a two-tenement house and I believe another occupant was Jerry Squires and family., Farther east on the edge of the same steep incline was the old Carpenter house owned by Charles Carpenter, author of the 1898 History of Pelham.

At the time of this account, it was occupied by the Spauldings—Mr. and Mrs. And son.

East of the Spauldings was the home of E. P. Bartlett, part owner of the Montague

Fishing Rod Company. This large house was the home of Mr. and Mrs. Bartlett, their daughter, Lotta, her husband, Royal Aldrich, their children, Marie and Mark, and of their daughter Jessie and her husband John Hubbard. At the foot of the hill and on a lane leading to the factory lived the Cuttings—Mr. and Mrs. Across the road to the factory was a house owned by the Bartletts and occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Flanders and their son,

Roy. Across from the home of the Bartletts was the home of Arthur and Dolores Jones and two young children. Farther east and overlooking the factory pond was the home of

John Seitz. Across the Valley Road and east of the Community House and one time schoolhouse, was the home of Milton Thornton and his wife, a Morgan, and their son

Kenneth. Diagonally across from the Milton Thorntons was the home of Joe Morgan and wife. At the intersection of South Valley Road and Jones Road was the home of “Bert”

Jones, his wife, and sons. At the junction of Amherst Road and Harkness Road was the

70 home of James Anderson and is wife, Isabel (Morgan). James died early in the period covered by this report. He was a canny Scotsman who for several years represented his district in the state legislature.

The Fishing Rod Factory. The factory building was an L-shaped wooden building situated near the Amethyst Brook to utilize its water power. It was two to three stories high. On the ground floor in the southwest corner was the engine room, equipped with a steam boiler fired by 4-foot cord wood, and furnishing heat a power, a steam engine and in later years, an electric motor. Power was transmitted over the shop by an elaborate system of shafts and driving belts. The engineer was Mr. Cutting. It was customary to take power from the turbine water wheel when there was a sufficient head of water, shifting once or twice a day to steam or electric power.

During the period covered by this account, a few wooden rods were being made of lancewood or greenheart, but the chief product was rods of split bamboo. All split bamboo rods consist of six tapered triangular pieces of bamboo glued in a rod hexagonal in cross section. At that time, most of the split bamboo rods were made of two kinds of bamboo—Calcutta or steelvine, which came in bundles of sticks up to about two inches at the butt end. These started their process through the factory in the ground floor room to the north of the engine room. Here sections of the proper length were sawed into strips of not much more than a quarter inch in width. These strips were then passed through a planer which cut them into triangular strips having the proper taper. Henry Allen operated the saw and lathe which turned out the wooden rods. Victor Thornton and

“Bert” Jones operated the planers which turned out the bamboo strips.

71 The bamboo splits were assembled in the “winding” room, where six pieces were loosely tied together, all with the bark side out. This operation took considerable skill since the tips of the fly rods consisting of six separate splits was scarcely the diameter of a tooth pick. The assembled sections were transferred to the gluing room which was on the ground floor east of the engine room. Here they were soaked in a long pan of hot glue, and pulled one by one through a spindle which wrapped them tightly with strong thread. They then went to a pan of hot water to wash off surplus glue, were whipped and rolled on a marble block, straightened by hand, and carefully placed in layers on a drying rack where they spent several weeks to dry. The gluing was done for many years by John

Seitz and the straightening by Lyman W. Allen. During my high school and college years, I worked occasionally at the gluing machine but was never able to get the knack of straightening. After drying, the sections were again dipped in hot water and the relaxed string stripped off. This was done in the gluing room by Joe Mailloux. The sections were then rumbled into smooth or sent back to the planning room to be machine sanded or smoothly polished by hand sanding. This was done by “Will” Robinson or Mr.

Spaulding.

The rods, each consisting of a butt, joint and two tips were then assembled in the

“mounting” room where they were equipped with grips, ferrules, and tip tops. Several people worked there of whom I can recall James Anderson and Milton Thornton.

Previous to mounting, the metal parts of nickel plate and German silver were polished at a power buffer operated by Jerry Squires.

From the mounting room, the rods went to the “winding” room which was on the first floor of the ell oriented north and south. Here several women were employed

72 “winding” on guides and ornamental bands of colored thread. This was all hand work operated from boxes holding the thread at proper tension. I cannot recall the names of the numerous women who worked here, except Freida Robinson who was supervisor for several years. After winding, the winds were carefully shellacked and the rods sent upstairs to the varnishing room. Two men worked at this operation but I do not recall their names. Many of the rods were sheathed in cloth cases containing separate pockets for butt, joint, or tip. These cases were cut and sewn on a power sewing machine at one end of the winding room.

Upstairs, south of the varnish room, outgoing shipments were assembled. This was done by Joe Morgan. On the ground floor south of the winding room was the business office, occupied by the manager and owner, E. P. Bartlett, assisted at times by his sons-in-law Royal Aldrich and John Hubbard.

I cannot recall much of the activities in and the people employed in the big room above the room where the splits were made. I do know that much of the machinery and many of the tools used could not be purchased and had to be made in the plant. I believe that much of this was metal work and done in this room, and that one of the metal workers was Mr. Wells.

Other Industries. At the beginning of the time covered by this report, many of the

Pelham families owned profitable woodlots. Before the coming of the chestnut blight, chestnut was the chief source of railroad ties. These were usually turned out on the woodlot where the trees were felled and cut into the proper length for ties on the lot and dressed there with a broad a. Another profitable source of income was the white pine and hemlock in the mixed forest. Where the cutting was sufficient size, portable steam

73 sawmills were moved onto the woodlot to do the job. The timber was usually sold on the spot to local brokers who managed the operation to the sale of cured lumber from that point. Frank Cadwell of Amherst was frequently the buyer who bought the timber and marketed the seasoned lumber. In smaller holdings the logs out of the woodlot were hauled to a water-powered sawmill located just below the fishing rod factory on the

Amethyst Brook. This mill was operated by Lewis W. Allen, and later by “Bert” Harris and son. At that time the trees were felled and the logs cut by 2-man crosscut saws.

While able to handle ax and saw fairly well at that time, I was always amazed at the speed with which trained woodchoppers could fell, lop off limbs and cut a felled tree into logs. The logs were hauled to the mill by two-horse teams, and the seasoned lumber to market in the same way. This was much more easily done in winter on snow cover when sleds were used. This was well before the time of chainsaws, power trucks, and in the

Pelham woods, even the stem winch and cable.

Parts of Pelham are underlain with a grey granite easily cleft into rectangular blocks or slabs. At various times, two or more quarries have been profitably operated; many Amherst buildings are constructed, in part at least, of this stone. I am uncertain as to the exact location of the quarries.

For many years Pelham has had a plentiful supply of hardwood (black and yellow birch, several species of oak and hickory) and softwood (grey birch, poplar and the tops of pine and hemlock) cut for lumber. This has usually been marketed in 4-foot lengths in

Amherst and Hadley brickyards and to a lesser extent to homeowners who would have a few cords delivered and sawed to stove lengths and used in their heating furnaces to supplement the coal supply. One well known Pelham character of that period was a

74 wood peddler by the name of Orcutt Clough who day after day during many ears passed over the Amherst Road to deliver a one-horse box cart load of stove length cord wood to customers in Amherst. Orcutt was a native humorist and friend of nearly everybody along his route.

Pelham, like nearly all of New England, was overrun by great glaciers during the most recent glacial period. The retreating ice scattered millions of tons of rocks and boulders over the land in its retreat. The early farms laboriously gathered these rocks from the tilled fields and laid them in stone walls surrounding the fields. In the period covered by this report, many of these walls were removed, being carted to Amherst where they became foundation walls, or even the entire outside walls of newly constructed houses.

Recreation. In this part I shall dwell mainly on the activities of the young. The older generations had church functions, family visits back and forth and active participation in the Mason and Odd Fellow Lodges in Amherst, as well as a considerable range of activities made available through the Holyoke Railway System with its branch line to West Pelham. In this period there was no public radio or television so the young had to depend on their own resources for their entertainment. The West Pelham Church had suppers followed by games, attended by all ages. After the building of the “new school,” about 1910, the old one-room schoolhouse was much used for dances and public card parties. The young folks of high school age had their own parties. In my own experience, I can recall many pleasant evenings spent at the homes of Sally and Lora

Ward, and of the Jon Pages. For those who attended high school or college in Amherst,

75 there were athletics, lays, sings, dramatics, etc. At the state college there were frequent dances known as “informals.”

During the winter months, the hills of the Valley Road and the Amherst Road were worn to icy smoothness by the heavy sledding of wood and lumber. At night these were free of traffic and much used for bob-sledding by what was then termed “double runners.” These bobsleds would accommodate about six people and had enough weight to gain high speed on the icy tracks. Although not equipped with headlights, they were used largely I night sliding and traveled “blind” into the darkness. Despite the risk, I cannot recall any serious accidents. The run down the crooked Valley Road frequently ended in the soft snow banks beside the road, trying to negotiate curves at high speed.

On the Amherst Road it was possible to coast from near the Harris Road to far down over the Amherst line.

There was also plenty of ice skating on Howard Pond, on several sink holes temporarily partly filled with snow melt, and on ice ponds near East Street in Amherst.

On the latter, the boys organized informal hockey games.

For several years, Pelham had a well-organized baseball team. The team played and practiced on a field with the “skinned” diamond in a pasture lot south of and not far from John Page’s. The team played a regular schedule of Saturday games with

Belchertown, Montague, Greenfield and other town teams, usually without paying spectators. It had as regular players Herman Page as catcher, Raymond Robinson as second baseman—both on the Amherst High School team—Harry Allen at third base who played on his college class team, John Hubbard, a well known track team and football player at Amherst college who played first base, Joe Morgan at shortstop,

76 “Gene” Ward and “Jerry” Squires as pitchers, Ernest Ward, Milton Thornton, Victor

Thornton and Sidney Thornton as outfielders, and John Page as umpire.

For the men and boys there was excellent hunting for upland game and fishing.

The Amethyst Brook, Buffam Brook, Baker Brook, and King Street Brook were well stocked with legal-sized wild brook trout. This was before the advent of stocking with large fish. Hearthstone Brook was always swarming with small trout which were sometimes sneked home at the risk of encountering the game warden. At Knights’ Pond there was day fishing by the method known as “skittering” for pickerel at the margins of the lily pads, and at night for the northern red-meated catfish known locally as

“bullheads.” In the valley east of Pelham Hill was a shallow pond stocked with great numbers of yellow perch and a famous trout stream known as Swift River. Both pond and river are now many feet below water level under Quabbin Reservoir. For the small boys there was always vast numbers of small bullheads to be caught in Howard’s Pond, over the Amherst line from Harkness Road.

For local hunters,, the chief upland game was the ruffed grouse known locally as partridge, very fast on the wing, a skillful dodger and hard to hit. In the fall, its chief cover was in the wooded ravines where there were scattered wild apple trees. There was also an abundance of cottontail rabbits, in wild blueberry patches and cut over slashings, and grey squirrels where there was a supply of nuts. In the alder swamps there were also some woodcock. Snow Shoe rabbits or varying hares, known locally as white rabbit were fairly abundant in deep woods, having an under story of mountain laurel. They and red fox were strong runners and were usually hunted with dogs.

77 Wild Life. In the period from 1900 to 1913 I cannot recall that here was any evidence within town limits of black bears, panthers, wolves, coyotes, moose, beavers or wild turkey. Peasants, if present, were uncommon. During the past 75 years there has been a tremendous change in the appearance of the landscape in western Massachusetts.

Farmland, which provided a patchwork pattern in the early 1900s has been largely replaced by woodland, and this has had an effect on the wildlife. At the beginning of this period, Virginia deer were almost unknown but by 19135they had become numerous enough to be a pest in young orchards. In the deep woods near the New Salem border there were wildcats. In the beginning of this period I had never seen in Pelham any evidence of the presence of porcupines, but in the late teens they had become abundant on Mt. Orient.

There were also quite a number of wild animals present in the town. Cotton-tail rabbits were favored by the cutting of woodlots where the brush piles provided excellent cover, and the luxuriant new growth of wild blackberry excellent winter food. As previously stated, white rabbits or varying hares were fairly abundant in deep woods.

Red foxes ranged widely over forest and farmlands, and other fur-bearing animals, including minks, muskrats, skunks and weasels were present. Although hunted as game, grey squirrels were common where there were nut bearing trees. Red squirrels were numerous in the white pine forest, and chipmunks were abundant wherever there were stone walls. In the grassy meadows there were great numbers of small rodents, especially the short-tailed fieldmouse. Most houses and all barns were perennially infested with the black rat and mice.

78 As previously stated, the principal game bird was the ruffled grouse. I have been told that its abundance was due in part to deposits of fly-infested cow manure common at the margins of the pastures, and which provided grouse chicks with an abundance of fly maggots as food In summer days, hawks collectively known to farmers as “hen hawks” were a common feature in the summer skies, soaring round and round in the rising thermals. Crows and blue jays were also abundant. Over the marshes, marsh hawks were frequently in evidence. Several species of owls were also fairly common. In some areas, whip-poor-wills were so abundant, crating such an uproar at night as to be objectionable to residents. Among the common songbirds were robins, bluebirds, bobolinks, and redwing blackbirds. The introduced house sparrow was then surely uch more abundant than today, and the starling had not yet arrived. I suppose that the woodland songbirds were about as abundant as today. In the snow-covered winter woods, chickadees seemed to be present everywhere.

In the early part of the century there was an abundance of wild reptiles and amphibians. Every muddy-bottomed pond had its quota of red and white snapping turtles, and small spotted mud turtles. The most common snakes were the so-called black snake, the garter snake, and the small green snake. Probably there were also rattlesnakes, although I can recall no instance of their being killed in the town. Frogs of several species were extremely abundant. They included the so-called bull frogs, green frogs possible of several species, small gray and white species, tree frogs, and peepers. That was the era of dirt roads with deep ditches on the sides which were filled with stagnant water much of the year. In the spring and early summer there were thousands of small tadpoles in these roadside ditches. Frogs for bass and pickerel bait were always readily

79 available in every wet marsh or woodland area. On moist north slopes such as in Orient

Park, brilliant red newt were always present. In the summer, in quiet pools of the

Amethyst Brook another species of olive newt was present in abundance. In addition to brook trout, pickerel, and northern catfish previously mentioned, there were in the trout streams several species of minnows. Although several species of migratory fish ascend the Connecticut River and its tributaries, the only ones coming up the Amethyst Brook were suckers and eels. The eels, of course, breed far out in the south Atlantic and migrate up the brooks as small individuals. Suckers came upstream in great numbers in early spring and were taken at night by spearing under the light of torches. At the time covered, there was no deep, permanently cold water, and thus no lake trout or smelt such as now occur in Quabbin Reservoir.

During the period covered by this report, there were several in the world of insects and plant diseases which had large local effects. The arrival of the San Jose scale at this time killed off most of the old fence row apple trees and forced the growing of apples in carefully sprayed orchards. Orchard growing may have precipitated a great increase in the occurrence of the apple worm (codling moth) whi9ch had never previously been a severe pest, so from that time on apples were never worm-free unless sprayed with insecticides. During this period, roadside bushes and fruit trees became heavily infested with the browntail moth scattering highly poisonous hairs. After several years of the first heavy infestation, this past has never regained its former abundance.

Another serious forest and shade tree pest, the gypsy moth, extended its range over

Pelham at about this time and ever since serious forest shade tree defoliations have occurred.

80 At about the same time, the two principal lumber trees of southern New England and the thousands of great elm shade trees were seriously threatened. One of these was the chestnut tree blight which completely destroyed all mature trees in the eastern United

States. Only very recently saplings springing from the stumps of deadened trees have once again grown large enough to mature few chestnuts. Another serious disease was the white pine blister rust. This has been very laborously brought under control by eliminating all currant and gooseberry bushes within the vicinity of white pine stands.

Nearly all of the thousands of great shad tree elms of New England have been destroyed by the Dutch elm disease, carried from tree to tree by a small bark beetle.

Several of the occupations of Pelham men were highly hazardous. Accidents could occur with the razor sharp axes and broad axes. In the woodlot there could be miscalculations with a falling tree, especially if it became lodged in another tree. Getting logs from the places where they were cut to the mill, and cordwood out of the woodlot to market, customarily on sleds without braking equipment, could be highly hazardous. The necessary use of dynamite in the quarries and in blasting big boulders and ledges out of cultivated fields was also dangerous. Despite these risks I do not recall any fatal accidents in woodlots or on farmland during the period covered by this report.

However, there were several tragic deaths during this period. One many left his home in the middle of the night and died in the woods several miles from home. Another young man subject to fits fell off a staging on his father’s barn and was killed. Another young man killed himself by hanging. One woman, while burning trash in her backyard, caught on fire and was fatally burned. One woman was shot and killed by her husband

81 while visiting a neighbor. Her husband went home, seized a case of dynamite, and blew himself to shreds in his own back yard.

82 THE ATTEMPTED SUICIDE OF A MASSACHUSETTS TOWN By George H. Haynes [Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, of April, 1904]

That the same time which gave rise to an insurrection that threatened the very existence of this Commonwealth should later have made a series of deliberate attempts to commit suicide might at first seem to indicate remorse for early misdeeds. Such an outcome would satisfy the demands of poetic justice; unfortunately, however, it does not square well with the facts. Shay’s Rebellion and those attempts at suicide are doubtless the most unique features in the history of Pelham, yet both owe their chief interest to the fact that they were symptomatic of influences which extended far beyond her borders; for just as Shay’s Rebellion, according to the present view, was a protest, turbulent and revolutionary, to be sure, yet against genuine grievances which were wide-spread, but which for various reasons became most burdensome in Hampshire county, so the explanation of Pelham’s attempts at suicide is to be found in causes of municipal melancholia, familiar in scores of Massachusetts towns, but which became exceptionally acute in Pelham.

The impulse to self-destruction manifested itself first almost precisely fifty years ago. On the last day of January, 1854, a special town meeting was convened for the purposes thus set forth in the warrant:

“2d To see if said town is willing to give up and surrender her town Charter and become disenfranchised as to all privileges and rights. “3d To act on the subject of having said town divided in any legal way and manner and having the parts annexed to adjoining towns, and to use any legal means to accomplish the same.”

83 At the meeting it was voted: “to surrender this Town’s Charter according to the warrant calling this meeting. Seventy-three in favor (73). Thirty-six against (36).” To carry this action into effect committees were chosen to urge petitions already forwarded to the Legislature, to circulate petitions in Pelham, and to work up annexation sentiment in the adjoining towns. In Amherst, however, these advances met with a chilling reception. A special town meeting was called to determine the town’s will, and by a vote of exactly two to one (168:84. 27 February, 1854) it was “Resolved: as the sense of the

Town of Amherst, that as at present advised, and in the present state of proceedings before the Legislature, on the petition of the town of Pelham for leave to surrender its

Charter, and to be annexed to the adjoining towns, we are opposed to the surrender of its

Charter, and to the annexation of any portion of its territory to the town of Amherst,” and the town’s representative in the General Court was forthwith instructed to oppose

Pelham’s petition.

In Pelham the annual town meeting was approaching. In view of Amherst’s action it was decided to bring the matter up again, and an article was inserted in the warrant: “To see if the town will vote to rescind a vote . . to surrender the Charter of the town.” Excitement ran high, but when the town meeting day came (March 6, 1854), the attempt to rescind the previous action was defeated, and the town reasserted its determination to give up its corporate existence, not this time, however, by a vote of more than 2:1, but by the close vote of 87:84,--in a ballot which must have called out every voter in town, for in the following year the population of Pelham was but 789. Making the ordinary computation of one voter for every five inhabitants the enrolment would have been 178—there were 171 votes cast upon this question.

84 Two years later (January 28, 1856), another special meeting was called “To see if the town will Vote to surrender her Charter & be divided by the Legislature and set to the different Towns adjoining.” Upon dividing the house on this question, the vote stood

73:36 against surrendering the charter. The smallness of the vote and the reversal of attitude are remarkable, in contrast with the votes of 1854. For almost a dozen years

Pelham thereafter seems to have accepted life, without further protest; but in the early winter of 1867 a special town meeting again considered the proposal that the charter be surrendered. By a vote of 45:43 the project was defeated.

In 1870, however, the struggle was renewed with great determination. The principal article of the warrant for the March town meeting (March 15, 1870) was “To see if the town consent to surrender its Charter ad divide its territory between the towns of Amherst, Prescott, Enfield and Belchertown as already petitioned for to the Legislature by the citizens of the town of Pelham, and also to designate lines of Division.” The town’s action is thus recorded:

“Voted: that we surrender our Charter—86 8n favor; 36 against.” “voted: that we draw a line strait across from the North Northeast corner of Belchertown to the Northwest corner of Enfield, and merge all territory now belonging to Pelham in Belchertown or Enfield. And then, starting at the centre of the North line of Pelham, run parallel with the West line of said Pelham to the South line, merging all West of said line in the town of Amherst, and all east of said line in the town of Prescott..”

A large committee was appointed to confer with representatives of Amherst, and another committee to attend any hearing upon the subject which might be given by the

Legislature’s Committee on towns. Both Amherst and Prescott, in special town meetings, took vigorous action to oppose annexation.

85 Meantime the State Legislature was considering the problem. As early as

February 5,--by what authority it is not apparent,--the Pelham selectmen had caused to be presented to the General Court a petition that Pelham might be divided and merged in the adjoining towns. This was referred to the committee on Towns, to which, shortly after the March town meeting, there was referred also the remonstrance of certain citizens of

Pelham, against the proposed division. Presently, on the recommendation of the committee, both the House and the Senate voted to give the selectmen of Pelham leave to withdraw. But the matter was not ended without one more struggle. Pelham was at that time represented by a man who for fifteen years had been one of the most urgent advocates of the dissolution of the town. He therefore (May 5) prevailed upon the House to pass the following order: “That the Committee on the Judiciary inquire whether the town of Pelham ahs a legal existence, it having voted to surrender its charter.” It was indeed an interesting question. Must a town live, in spite of its wish to die? A week later

(May 12, 1870: House Doc., 373), upon the question “Whether Pelham has a legal existence?” the Committee returned the following report:

“That, in the opinion of the Committee, no Town can vote to surrender its charter or dissolve its corporate existence, without the consent of the legislature. A town is the creature of the legislature, and has only the powers given it by statue, and among these is not the power of annulling its existence. Its general powers are to provide schools, maintain its highways, protect the lives and property of its citizens and support its paupers; its general duties are to furnish its part of thee State tax, its quota of soldiers, &c; &c; it is, in fact, an intermediate agent between the State government and the people. And as it is strictly limited to the powers conferred by statute, and as the town of Pelham has not the power of surrendering its charter without the consent of the legislature give it by statute, and as it clearly cannot relieve itself of the obligations imposed upon it without such consent, the Committee is unanimously of the opinion that the town of Pelham has a legal existence, any of it votes to the contrary, notwithstanding.” Per order, WM. COGSWELL

86 It having been thus authoritatively decided that Pelham must needs live until the

Legislature gives her leave to die, it remains to ask: what were the cases of these repeated attempts at self-destruction? Were the Pelhamites a disorderly rabble who wished to throw off the restraints of law? Or were they theoretical anarchists, resolved to make an end of government, in order that they might revert to that blissful “state of nature,” in which each might be a law unto himself? In either of these cases, novel experiemtns might have been the result. Indeed, when these episodes were first called to my notice, there were put before my imagination scenes like these: Tommy, in the early fall, would ask: “Papa! Don’t I have to go to school pretty soon?” and would be answered: “Oh! There won’t be any more school here, for now we don’t live in Pelham any more: but your mamma’ll teach you how to read.” Or Susan, after a tedious drive over from Packardville, would ask: “John, what in the name of goodness is the matter with the roads? Why don’t your highway surveyors ‘tend to their business.” And John would reply, “We don’t have highway surveyors any more., P’raps some of us will patch up the roads a little, by and by.

Unfortunately for the interest of this story, such scenes as these find not the slightest basis in fact. It is true that in the period of suspense some features of Pelham government were at loose ends, and her officials indulged in crazy bookkeeping. At the

State House there is on file a curious letter from the town clerk of Pelham, dated January

29, 1873, in response to a request for the town reports to be filed in the state archives. In part it reads as follows:

“I doo not think our town affairs are in such shape or have ben for the years 1870 & 1 that a report could be made they doo not Know how much thay are in debt much more than you do whare they have borrowed money they keep no Account of it on book as can be found and ther is interest money cauled for

87 that has not Ben paid for 3 or 4 years and in fact our present Board of Selectmen New nothing about. Perhaps i am Saying to much But Such are the facts.

Your Respectfully,

CLERK OF THE TOWN OF PELHAM, MASS.”

But these men of Pelham never expected anything else than that they were to be citizens of some town. They had no wish to revolt against state authority, and until the question of dissolution and merger should be decided, they had not the faintest notion of suspending the regular functions of local government. On the very day following the vote of the House, refusing to grant the petition for the dissolution of the town, a regularly summoned town meeting was held, and the regular appropriations were voted, including $1,000 for the maintenance of schools, and $1,200 for highways; it was also voted “to raise $4500 for breaking and opening roads next winter, if needed to be expended”; and “to set up the Poor to the lowest bidder.” It was still an open question, whether Pelham now had a legal existence, et here her citizens were making provision for carrying on all the ordinary functions of local government.

The reasons for Pelham’s strange action, then, are not to be found in any abnormal turbulence of disposition, nor in vapid theorizing as to government. The reasons were more prosaic, and better fitted to appeal to the sensitive “pocket nerve” of the descendants of those frugal “North of Ireland Scotchmen,” who by reason of

Worcester’s religious intolerance, had shaken the dust of that inhospitable town from their feet, and had settled upon the bleak Pelham hills. I san “on the bleak Pelham hills,” for in those words is found the key to the whole situation. The influences which were at

88 work in Pelham have been felt in scores of our Massachusetts hill towns, but here a combination of circumstances made them exceptionally burdensome.

Pelham is a small town, about six miles in length by three and a half in width.

Looked at from the west, it presents a long range of hills, for the most part covered with forests. From the level of Fort River, at the western boundary, in the course of about four and one-half miles, the traveler makes a steady climb of nearly nine hundred feet to

Pelham Centre; from here to the east there is an abrupt descent of nearly nine hundred feet in about two miles, to the west branch of the Swift River; then the land rises rapidly to the East Pelham Hills, now in Prescott, parallel to the Pelham range, of about the same altitude, and but three miles distant from them. Such conditions make travel difficult.

The land, too, is not of great fertility. As a result, Pelham has always been sparsely settled. Three small hamlets have been built up, but there has never been a village of any considerable size. The old Conkey Tavern, where Daniel Shays and his discontented neighbors hatched their insurrection, was built for a tavern a spot from which not a single house was in sight; no one lived within half a mile of it, yet a still extant bill for liquors to supply the tavern’s trade indicates that a lively custom was anticipated.

These straggling hill towns, capable of progressive development under the old order of things, have been hard hit by the industrial changes which the last seventy-five years have brought to Massachusetts. Indeed, Pelham’s population reached its maximum in 1820 and since 1850 has dwindled steadily until now it is barely a third of what it was eighty years ago.

89

PELHAM’S POPULATION1

Year Population Year Population 1820 1278 1875 633 1850 983 (U. S.; Mass., 872) 1880 614 1855 789 1885 549 1860 748 1890 486 1865 737 1895 486 1870 673 1900 462

In the half-decade, 1850 to 1855, this little town lost nearly a tenth of its population. (If the Federal census figures are trusted, the loss was fully a fifth!) It was in the year 1854, it will be remembered that it was first voted to give up the town’s charter.

The later attempts to commit suicide, it is to be noted, also occurred during a decade,

1865 to 1875, when the falling off in population was portentous. The evolution which was then in process may have meant the “survival of the fittest,” but it was not in Pelham that they continued to survive, --in 1855 no town in Hampshire County supported more paupers than did Pelham. Northampton, with a population seven or eight times as great, was burdened with precisely the same number (eleven); next came little Prescott,

Pelham’s neighbor to the eastward, with nine. The thinning numbers did not make the eight school districts any fewer, nor did it shorten the miles of straggling highway, which kept open communication with a few remote farmhouses. In the midst of such discouragements, and with such a gloomy outlook, it is not surprising that the Pelham citizen should have become a pessimist.

1 In 1822 Prescott was incorporated, being made up of parts of Pelham and New Salem; this accounts for quite a large loss in Pelham’s population. Note the variation between the Massachusetts and the Federal census returns for 1850.

90 Pelham never had a real focus. The oldest church and the post-office were located on almost the highest land in town, at a distance of six miles from Amherst, which was destined to be the town’s chief market. The best lands in the town, as well as the most accessible, were in the valley of the Fort River, along the Amherst border. The residents of this section of the town early saw that their natural affiliations were with

Amherst, not with Pelham. As early as 1807 two en living in the southwest corner of the town had petitioned to be set off from Pelham and annexed to Amherst, but it was voted to “pass” that article in the warrant. But the farmers of that district felt it to be a great hardship that they should have to support church services at Pelham centre, which they could reach only by that weary climb of five or six miles. When close at hand lay the church at East Street, in Amherst. Accordingly, in 1812, six of these men petitioned the

General Court for leave “to be set off to Amherst of parochial purposes.” But the parish had not notion to lose some of its most well-to-do members; it therefore voted not to set them off, and chose a committee to oppose their petition at Boston. This attempt came to nothing. But it was in this western strip of the town that the sentiment in favor of dissolution was always strong, for they wished to be merged with the more prosperous

Amherst. Again and again both the town and the General Court were importuned that individual reswidents of this section might be set off. And, indeed, Amherst would doubtless have been glad to receive them. In the winter of 1854, after having opposed the petition for the surrender of Pelham’s charter, in the Amherst town meeting it was voted:

“To receive John Russell, if the Legislature will set him off from Pelham.” Even after the final refusal of the Legislature to allow Pelham to go out of existence, in the very ext year her representative, --and in all her history no other man ever served the town as an officer

91 more often or more faithfully, --petitioned to be thus set off from Pelham; but in vain.

Pelham was willing to blot her own name off the map, but not to allow the farms of one or two of her residents to be merged with Amherst. Amherst, on the other hand, was willing to annex a few farms, but did not care to take them with six or eight square miles of sparsely settled country with all its charges for schools, roads, etc. As a Pelham man put it, “Amherst was willing to take the meat, provided not too much bone was thrown in, while Pelham did not care to see herself left with all bone!”

Opposition to the surrender of the charter grew as one climbed the hill and got nearer the church, the post-office, and the old meeting house, which for ore than 160 years has been the centre of the town’s political life. During one of the movements in favor of the surrender of the charter, petitions were circulated for signatures in its favor.

A young man of West Pelham was making the rounds with one of threes, and called at a house near Pelham Centre. The man of the house was not at home; his wife listened with evident impatience to the statement of the caller’s errand. When asked if she wished to sign, she snapped out: “I’d sign quick enough, if it was to keep things as they are! If the charter is given up, will there be any post-office here?” The reply was evasive, and, as the woman’s spirit was evidently rising, her caller started to withdraw, with the conventional and pacificatory remark: “This is an unusually fine day for this season of the year!” “Yes!” was the rejoinder, “We do sometimes have fine days up here, as well as all in Amherst!” To the invitation to sign this same petition one of this woman’s neighbors replied: “By ______! I guess I won’t sign, but the old town’s got to go to hell, anyhow!”

92 This gloomy prophecy has not been fulfilled, yet the conditions which prompted it were obvious. In the transformations which were coming over New England, Pelham’s population had inevitably to dwindle. He who drives over her hills today sees almost as many fire-scarred chimneys as houses; here and there an old garden rose or lilac, blossoming by the wayside, is the sole surviving trace of a vanished homestead. The varied industries which found here a favorable location in the early part of the 19th century have disappeared, and the little water-powers are for the most part unused. There is but one manufacturing enterprise in the town, --a fishing-rod factory, --and this is near the Amherst line. The old Pelham family names figure now on the tomb-stones in here eleven cemeteries,--not on the voting list: there they have been replaced by those of new- comers, --men who are nomads in spirit, who virtually “camp” in Pelham, until some less unattractive opportunity for earning a scanty livelihood presents itself; then they “move on.”

Yet indications are not lacking that Pelham’s nadir is well passed. The process of readjustment has been painful and depressing; but Pelham is working out her own salvation, if with fear and trembling yet also with intelligence and with a lively hope.

While contemptuous Amherst is deeply in debt, having almost reached the legal limit, frugal Pelham is not only out of debt, but has a surplus at interest. Only four schools are now kept open, in place of eight, but the school buildings are neatly painted, and in good repair. The State aids in paying a part of the salaries of experienced teachers of good grade, and high school opportunities are available in Amherst. Indeed, of the sum, -- approximately $1,500, --annually expended for schools in Pelham, only about forty-five percent is raised by local taxation; the rest is furnished by the State. The churches and

93 the ancient meeting-house look well cared for. By the aid of the State the beginnings of a public library have been made. Post-boxes for rural free delivery are scattered along the highway all up the weary climb to Pelham centre, linking her people more closely to the outer world. The State Highway Commission has put in a section of excellent gravel road. Finally, an electric railway, with all its civilizing and transforming powers, has invaded Pelham’s borders, has begun to climb her discouraging hill, and already aspires to work its way across Pelham and Prescott to the larger towns beyond. With the State’s aid in education and with the replacing of isolation by ready accessibility through free delivery and rapid transit, Pelham finds life better worth living. It will be strange indeed if, in this day of awakening delight in the beauties of nature, the attractions of her wind- swept hills with their splendid views, of her picturesque valleys and clear streams remain undiscovered and unappreciated. Pelham is becoming adjusted and reconciled to the new life, and her persistent attempts to commit suicide have already become an almost forgotten episode.

Note.—The writer wishes to make cordial acknowledgment of his indebtedness to Mr. C. O. Parmenter, not only for the use of material from his excellent History of Pelham, but also for helpful suggestions and pleasant companionship in study among the Pelham Hills. G. H. H.

94 A NOTORIOUS RASAL OF THE “GOOD OLD TIMES” By George Henry Hubbard

“The good old times!” When were they? A century ago? Such is the popular fallacy. Seen through the rosy glasses of the historical novelist and favored by the dim light of a reverent imagination, it is easy to picture the closing of the eighteenth century and the opening of the nineteenth as a Golden Age in New England so far as morals and society are concerned. And not a few persons really believe that was a period of pure lives and high ideals from which we have fallen many degrees. The illusion is pleasing, but an illusion none the less. Would you dispel the enchantment? Read the records.

Make a careful study of the historic facts. Such familiarity if it does not breed contempt for the old, will certainly deepen respect for the new. It will prove that however good the old times may have been, the new are better. The moral ideals of one hundred years ago were lower than those of today. Commercial standards were less exalted. Crime was proportionately more frequent. Charlatans and tricksters abounded, and they throve, not upon the innocence of the people, but upon their ignorance, their greed, their superstition.

Even the religious life of the time was far less pure, practical and unselfish than at present.

The criminology of the period brings to light many characters more interesting than pleasing. Among these one of the most notorious was Stephen Burroughs, a name well known throughout a large part of New England and some parts of Canada as well, and everywhere associated with rascality. This man though well born and educated seemed to possess a rare genius for crime; and he was looked upon by many of his contemporaries as one of the most wily and dangerous villains within or without prison

95 walls. In his chameleon-like character of preacher, teacher, counterfeiter and thief, he even outrivaled the famous “Priest Parker” of Connecticut, the lines of whose history seem at times to have become entangled with his own.

Certain hill towns of the Connecticut Valley are rich in traditions of Burroughs’ escapades, for that valley was the scene of his first activities. Born at Hanover, New

Hampshire, he was the son of a worth Presbyterian clergyman who sought to train him up in the way that he should go. But the youth was possessed of a precocious wit and an excess of animal spirits which reacted violently against the rigor of parental training, and no doubt his erratic conduct and warped character were the result of this reaction.

Certain it is that from boyhood he was given to playing pranks that caused no little trouble to his teachers and anxiety to his parents.

The chief employment of his preparatory school days seems to have been fruit stealing, piling logs against a neighbor’s door so that when the man came to open the door he was buried under an avalanched of his own fire wood, driving an old horse belonging to another neighbor at full speed up and down the street of the village till the animal was ruined; even destroying some of the buildings on the school grounds. He must, however, have done some studying at odd moments, for he entered Dartmouth college in 1781 with the approval of his teacher. Here, too, his abbreviated course of something less than two years was more fruitful in scrapes than in study. Unquestionably young Burroughs was the hero of an old Dartmouth tradition that has been accredited to several other and lesser scamps. Being out one evening with a company of congenial spirits, he incidted them to steal various signs from village stores. Just as they had secured one particular prize, the proprietor got wind of the affair and pursued the vandals,

96 tracing them to Burroughs’ room. Then he went and gave information to the president of the college, and together they proceeded to the door to demand admission. Meanwhile the conspirators had thrust the sign into the open fireplace and were burning it as rapidly as possible. As a considerable portion of it, however, still remained unconsumed, they must gain time. So Burroughs, knowing that the college authorities would never interrupt a student’s devotions, took his Bible and began to read in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by those outside the door, “An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it.” The reading was followed by a prayer lengthy and fervent in which the college authorities and townspeople were the principal subjects of intercession. When the prayer was ended the door was open in response to an imperative knock; but it is hardly necessary to say that no traces remained of the evening’s depredations.

One of the professors had earned the bitter dislike of Burroughs by discovering a number of his pranks. The recitation room where this instructor met his classes was in the second story of one of the college buildings, and the old gentleman had a well-known habit of sliding his hand along the banister rail as he went up and down the stairs. One morning Stephen carefully daubed this rail from one end to the other with pitch. At recitation time the professor who mind was wholly absorbed with classical subjects ascended the stairs as usual, his hand gliding along the rail. Suddenly he became aware that something was wrong, and holding up his very much soiled hand he turned angrily to the culprit standing near with a company of classmates and exclaimed, “Burroughs, I believe you know who has had a hand in this matter!” “Why,” responded Burroughs, in

97 the most innocent manner possible, “judging from appearances, I should say that you had a hand in it.”

Although very sly, Burroughs was not always successful in escaping detection in his tricks and, as a result, he was expelled from college just before the close of his sophomore year. This brief course of study was supplemented by a few months of foreign travel in a manner quite keeping with the remainder of his history. Going to

Newburyport, he shipped on board a packet bound for France in the capacity of ship’s doctor. One voyage, however, amply satisfied his ambition in that direction. The vessel seems to have done some privateering work and her crew was composed for the most part of a very rough class of men. On the return trip the pretended physician provoked the enmity of the captain and chief officer, so that he was brought back in irons and imprisoned for some time after landing on a charge of having purloined some of the stores of wine and other things on shipboard. These charges he indignantly denies in his own account of the experience; but in view of the character which he revealed in later years, they are by no means improbable.

His next venture, after of year of idleness at his father’s home, was the securing of a position as school-teacher in Orford, New Hampshire. For this work he had a remarkable aptitude, and was both successful and popular. But one winter’s night he joined some of his old college friends in a plan to steal a hive of bees, was recognized by the owner, and was obliged to leave for parts unknown to avoid arrest and imprisonment.

Possibly his departure was hastened by the unexpected return of a husband to whose wife

Burroughs had been assiduously making love during his absence. Assuming his mother’s family name of Davis, he traveled southward along the Connecticut Valley until he came

98 one afternoon late in the week to the town of Ludlow, Massachusetts. Here he secured entertainment at the home of a Mr. Fuller, prominent in the congregational Church of the town and learned that the church was without a pastor. Representing himself as a clergyman, he expressed his willingness to supply the vacant pulpit and the offer was readily accepted. As he lacked neither assurance nor ability and had provided himself with a number of his father’s manuscript-sermons before setting out on his journey, the

Sunday service passed off in a manner satisfactory to all concerned; but for some unexplained reason the people of Ludlow did not care to engage him permanently.

Elated by his success, Burroughs determined to continue in the character of a preacher, and secured a favorable introduction to the church in Pelham, about twenty miles from Ludlow, which was then in search of a pastor. There he was first engaged for four Sabbaths at five dollars a Sabbath, and then for four months more at the same rate.

For a time all went well; but soon the people began to suspect that their supplier was not what he pretended to be; and circumstances tended to confirm their suspicions. A number of deaths occurred in the parish in rapid succession, and when the young preacher was called to officiate at the funeral services, he came to each with a written sermon. The people wondered that one without experience could prepare sermons at such short notice, and when a parishioner who sat near him on one such occasion observed the signs of age in the manuscript, the suspicions were deepened.

The people went to a neighboring pastor and disclosed their misgivings and the reasons for them. He advised them to test the young man’s ability and suggested a plan for doing so. Acting upon his advice, one of the deacons greeted Burroughs as he entered the meeting-house one Sabbath morning and handed him a slip of paper, saying that it

99 contained a text from which he would like to have him preach that day. Opening the paper he found written within these words from Joshua ix. 5, --“Old shoes and clouted upon their feet.”

At first the pretender was a trifle disconcerted, but summoning to the emergency all his assurance he proved himself quite equal to the occasion. He had been thoroughly instructed in Bible history, and was able to kill a good deal of time with a review of the story from which the text was taken. While doing this, he was arranging the plan and application of the sermon proper. His sermon was divided into three parts in which he considered first, the place of shoes; second, of old shoes and third, of clouted s hoes.

Under the first head he compared life to a journey, and spoke of good shoes as a condition of swift and safe progress. Under the second he spoke of “old shoes” as types of old sins. Among these none are older or more troublesome than jealousy and discord; they creep into churches and work untold harm. And thirdly, those who wear old shoes are wont to patch and clout them with all manner of false pretences. Clouted shoes therefore represented hypocrisy and sham. He then proceeded to a direct application of the theme to the people before him, and in view of the past discords and present suspicions and jealousy of the church the fitness was only too clear. The cavilers were silenced if not convinced, and no one thereafter could call in question the young preacher’s ability, whatever they might think as to his character.

Not long afterwards, Burroughs was visited by his old college chum, who called him by his right name several times in the hearing of his people. He was also recognized by one or two other persons who chanced to be visiting in the neighborhood, and after a time matters became so involved that he feared to remain longer in town. One night

100 during the last week of his engagement, he mounted his horse and set out for Rutland where he had an acquaintance with whom he hoped to find employment. His departure becoming known to the people of Pelham, they gathered together and set off in pursuit.

The ex-preacher was in his friend’s store when the ob of Pelhamites arrived eager for his capture. As they advanced upon him, he stuck the first with a cane, breaking his arm. A second he felled to the ground with a large stone. Then he fled into a neighboring barn and hastily climbed a ladder to the haymow, carrying with him a scythe that hung near; and when his pursuers entered the barn floor he warned them that any man attempting to climb the ladder would be cut down.

An angry altercation ensued, in which the people of Rutland assumed the attitude of arbitrators between accusers and accused. Old suspicions and grievances were rehearsed, and it was shown that Burroughs had been sailing under false colors. Still nothing very tangible could be alleged beyond the fact that he had collected pay for one

Sabbath more than he had preached; but as that Sabbath had not yet come it was not entirely clear that he had intentionally defrauded them even in that matter. It was finally agreed that all parties should adjourn to the neighboring tavern and that the unearned five dollars should be expended in liquid refreshments to be consumed by preacher, deacons, and laymen on the spot; which was accordingly done. The liquor was so strong, however, that it reawakened the belligerent spirit, and Burroughs was obliged to flee once more to escape capture.

Tradition has it that while on the haymow in Rutland, Burroughs preached a mock sermon to the assembly in the barn floor, and several pamphlet copies of this sermon are still in existence. A few lines will give some notion of its general character:

101 THE HAY MOW SERMON

“In those days the Pelhamites being gathered together from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south: Stephen Burronite, being the Prophet of Pelham, ascended the haymow and lifted up his voice, saying, ‘Hear ye the voice of the Lord which crieth against the Pelhamites, --for the anger of the Lord smoketh with furious indignation against you for the follies which you have committed against the Lord and against his anointed. For verily, saith the Lord, I have given you my prophets, rising up early and sending them; but the first you rejected; the second, on account of your cruelty, I took unto myself; the third you drove away with great wrath, and pursued with great rage,, malignity and uproar.’ Then said the Lord, ‘I will give them a minister like unto themselves, full of all deceit, hypocrisy, and duplicity. But who among all the sons of men shall I send?’ Then came forth a lying spirit, and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will go forth and be a spirit in the mouth of Stephen the Burronite.’ And the Lord said, ‘Go.’ Then up rose Stephen the Burronite, of the tribe of the Puritans, and family of Ishmael, and went forth to Pelham, sorely oppressing the Pelhamites, taking from them ten shekels of silver, a mighty fine horse, and changes of raiment, and ran off to Rutland.”

Here follows a ludicrous account of the pursuit and this story of the return:

“Therefore they blew a trumpet saying, ‘Every man to his ten, O Pelhamites!’ So they all went up from following after the Prophet; but when they came to the pass of the Jordan, behold a strong army had taken possession of the fords of the river! At which the Pelhamites were sore dismayed, and sought by guile to deceive the army of the Lincolnites. Therefore they say unto the Lincolnites, ‘We be strangers from a far country with old shoes and clouted upon our feet.’ Then said the Lincolnites unto the men of Pelham, ‘Say, Faith.’ Then the Pelhamites said, “Fath,’ for they could nor say ‘faith.’ Then the Lincolnites knew them to be Pelhamites, and fell upon them and slew them.

“And the Pelhamites who were carried away captive to the city of Dan (which in Hebrew is called Abandone, but in Syriac Worcester) besought Jammy the Bostonian, saying, ‘We be evil men, dealing in lies and wickedness; we have sought to destroy the goodness of the land! We digged a pit and fell therein; we have trusted to St. Patrick to deliver us, but he has utterly forsaken us, --therefore, O Fammy, in thy wrath remember mercy, and we will leave off assembling ourselves together to talk politics, and follow our occupation of raising potatoes.’ Then Fammy, the Bostonian, had compassion on the Pelhamites.”

This “sermon,” which is too lengthy for reproduction in full, is a masterpiece of cutting satire, and sorely wounded those against whom it was aimed. It holds up to ridicule their treatment of its author, and shows it to be in keeping with that which his

102 predecessors had received. It touches upon the Irish descent of the people of Pelham, a most sensitive point with them, and finally it caricatures their part in Shays’ rebellion.

This proves that, notwithstanding tradition, the sermon was not actually [reached—in this form at least—from the haymow; for that episode occurred in 1784, whereas Shay’s rebellion did not take place till 1786. “Benjamin the Lincolnite” is General Benjamin

Lincoln by whom the army of Shays was scattered. And “Fammy the Bostonian” is

Governor James Bowdoin, from whom Shays and his followers sought and obtained their pardon.

Burroughs disappeared from Rutland to appear again in Attleboro where he supplied the vacant pulpit of the congregational church for four Sabbaths with such acceptance that he might have continued there indefinitely, had he not agreed to render a llike service in Danbury, Connecticut. But this engagement he never fulfilled. On leaving Attleboro, he made a secret visit to one of his parishioners in Pelham with whom he had become greatly interested in a scheme for transmuting copper into silver. By this time, however, the scheme had taken the more commonplace form of an attempt to put into circulation some counterfeit money which they had procured from Glazier Wheeler of New Salem, a noted counterfeiter of the time.

In an attempt to pass some of this money in Springfield, Burroughs was detected, convicted, and committed to Northampton jail. There he quickly acquired a reputation for great skill and persistence in trying to break jail, and he was recognized as a most desperate character. Once he set fire to the building. Again he was found with fetters broken, digging through the walls of his cell. So troublesome was he, not alone because of his own acts, but also on account of his influence upon other prisoners, that he was at

103 length removed to Castle Island in Boston Harbor. Here he effected an escape by piercing the thick stone and brick walls from inside of his chimney with a nail for his only tool. He was recaptured soon after reaching the mainland, and not long afterwards led the prisoners in an open insurrection against their guards.

At the expiration of his term of imprisonment, he took up the work of t4eaching in

Charlton, Massachusetts, with his usual success. A year later he married Sally Davis, his cousin, and was apparently settling down to a respectable life, when certain immoralities in connection with some of his pupils led to his arrest and commitment to Worcester jail.

From this place he quickly escaped, and again fled, this time to Long Island, taking the name of Stephen Edenson. There he maintained the character of a respectable and popular teacher for several years. But at length he became involved in quarrels with some of the best citizens, and returned with his family to his old home in Hanover, New

Hampshire.

His father was much pleased with his conduct at this time and cherished fond hopes for his permanent reformation But three years of life together sufficed to assure the elder Burroughs that all was not yet right with his son, and they separated, Stephen moving to Canada. Here his life displayed the usual alternations between respectability and criminality. At different times he was imprisoned in Montreal and Quebec; and here as known as a counterfeiter. Yet in his later years he professed to embrace Romanism and became a trusted and honored tutor in some of the best Roman Catholic families in the province. The Burroughs place is still pointed out, in one of the rural districts of the province of Quebec, where this strange man died at the advanced age of more than ninety

104 years, generally respected, yet with the savor of a mysterious and uncanny history clinging to him.

105 ORIENT SPRINGS HOUSE Research courtesy of Paul Bigelow

The Orient Springs House was established in 1853 by William Newell, a shoemaker in Pelham and an amateur minerologist. Newell discovered that the springs in the ravine near Amethyst Brook contained iron, sulfur and other minerals. With promotion, visitors came to drink the water. To accommodate guests Newell built a house on the property complete with bowling alley.

The original building burned in 1858. In 1861 Dr. Sornberger of Northampton purchased the property and erected this summer hotel. It was three stories high and 100 feet long and had a commanding view of Amherst and the Pioneer Valley. By 1865 there were several fountains, forty-four springs, winding paths, and a promise to its patrons of good health. An advertisement in 1873 read:

The Orient Springs Health Institute Is located near the town of Amherst, Massachusetts for the treatment and Cure of Paralysis in all its forms. Spinal diseases, Contracted Cords And limbs; Crooked Feet and Hands; Enlarged Joints, Wry Necks; Curvations of the Spine, Hip Disease, Rickets, St. Vitus Dance And all deformities.

There were several owners after Sornberger. None of them was very successful in managing the hotel. On February 23, 1881 the building accidentally caught fire and burned to the ground.

106 PELHAM’S FISH ROD COMPANY

E. P. BARTLETT Location: West Pelham on Amethyst Brook Manufacturer of Fishing Rods of All Kinds Amherst, Mass.

1742-1800 Gristmill 1932-1940 Poultry House 1800-1864 Gristmill & Sawmill; 1942-1950 Wood Shop Also a Blacksmith Shop, 1950-1974 Boiler Equipment Trust Carding Shop, & Shoe 1974- Present HRD Press Last Shop 1864-1931 Fish Rod Factory

Home lot #32 was set aside as a mill place by the original proprietors in 1739.

Probably the first mill in Pelham, a grist mill, was built there in 1742. Downstream from this mill site, was a saw mil site, also part of Home lot #32. In 1837, that mill, which then included a shingle mill as well as a turning mill, was sold to Horace Gray. About

1858, Horace’s son, Calvin Dwight, became interested in making a better fishing rod. He began to make a few poles and developed a market for them with the local fishermen.

Horace saw the commercial prospects, and father and son began to turn out poles in addition to their sawmill operation. By 1864, the fishing rod business had become extremely successful and ws in need of more space so Grays bought the gristmill site described above and moved to that space to devote full time to the manufacture of fishing rods. The building where this factory was housed is the building which still stands, housing HRD Press; it was apparently built in 1820 during an upgrading of the mill.

Calvin Gray died in 1873 at the afe of 36. In 1874, the fish rod factory was sold to

Joseph G. Ward and Scott Latham. Latham immediately sold his share to Ward.

107 Eugene Prentiss Bartlett, who was to become such an important force in the growth of the fish rod company, went to work for Gray and Son in 1872 for 75¢ a day. In

January, 1874, he was made superintendent of the company and on July 9, 1874, he married Jane, the daughter of Joseph Ward, who by that time owned the company. In

1880 E. P. and his brother, Leander, bought the factory. In 1883, Leander withdrew and started a factory in Montague City. During the next six years, the Pelham Fish Rod

Company trebled its business under E. P. Bartlett. In 1889, the two companies combined once again and the company was from that time known as the Montague Rod and Reel

Compan. There was also a plant in Post Mills, VT and one which made reels in

Brooklyn, NY. Leander became President and Eugene became Director and

Superintendent of the factory in Pelham. It was said that the company turned out three- quarters of all split bamboo rods made in the USA. The annual output at one time was

6,000 rods of all grades; there were 200 some different styles in the catalogue. At its peak, the Pelham factory employed 60 men and women. Eugene had two daughters:

Lotta married Royal Aldrich who had come to work at the factory in Pelham and later was manager for many years. Their two sons, mark and Royal, were also involved in the company. Mark was working in Pelham when it closed in 1931.

E. P. Bartlett died in 1925 at the age of 72. The plant in Pelham was closed on

June 20, 1931. All the work from the Pelham plant, as well as the other two plants was consolidated in the Montague City factory where fish rods continued to be produced until

July, 1955. Several Pelham workers continued to drive to Montague City to work.

Acknowledgements: Pelham, Historical Society Archives; Jones Library Special Collections. Special thanks to Paul Bigelow whose manuscripts on Pelham’s water powered mills was so helpful.

108 REVEREND ABERCROMBIE OF PELHAM AND HIS “FLIP” By Warren R. Brown [taken practically as told from Parmenter’s History of Pelham]

When the country was first settled there was n o more objection, as everyone knows, to the drinking of intoxicating liquors than there is now to tea and coffee; nevertheless, drinking to excess was frowned upon. Therefore, when some of the people who were not friendly to Rev. Robert Abercrombie, the first minister of Pelham, circulated the story that he was indulging in spirituous beverages more freely than the custom of the time required or permitted, the church as a body was finally obliged to take notice. This resulted in the appointment of a committer to wait on the pastor with instructions to advise him in a Christian spirit, of the charges and of the necessity of exercising restraint in the future. Mr. Abercrombie was not present at the meeting, but a friend told him when to expect “a visit,” and he told his wife to follow the usual practice on such occasions. “That is, to mix the flip or toddy, which his visitors would expect to have served; the first time with a small quantity of spirit and goodly quantity of water.

After a reasonable time she was to mix another round of flip, with less water, and more spirit, and if the visit was extended considerably a third round of flip wan to be prepared using little if any water, but composed almost entirely of rum.

The committee arrived on their mission as Pastor Abercrombie had been informed, and as the custom of the time demanded, the flip was brought in and the committee did not feel it wrong to accept the proffered beverage. The committee and the pastor passed the time in pleasant conversation, the committee not finding it quite so easy to broach the business which they had been entrusted with as they expected; but finally

109 mustered up courage to make known their business after the second round of flip, with more rum and less water, had loosened their tongues.

Pastor Abercrombie much to their surprise did not take offense, but on thecontrary expressed sorrow that he should have given cause for such action by the church—if there had been real cause for the charge he expressed himself as thankful for the kindly Christian spirit manifested by the committee in the discharge of the duty laid upon them, and hoped that their report to the church would be made in the same spirit of

Christian charity and kindliness.

The committee having discharged their whole official duty laid aside their dignity and reserve, and proceeded to enjoy the occasion as an exceedingly pleasant social call.

It was quite late in the evening when the last round of flip, composed wholly of rum, and a generous quantity of it, was brought it, and the committee drank freely thereof.

It was not long before the enjoyment of the occasion had so completely overcome the committee that they were unable to go to their homes, and were lying prone upon the floor.

Daylight was showing beyond the line of Pelham East Hill when two of them began pulling themselves together to make a start for home, and the drenched nature of the third member of the committee “lay in swinish sleep” until the next forenoon, and some affirm the afternoon of the day following, before he had sufficient command of himself to set out for his house.

Unlike many other committees who make up reports to ay before the body that gave authority to investigate and report at some future occasion, this committee did not

110 allow the public to learn of what happened at the Parson’s on that eventful night, nor what their report was to be. For obvious reasons the committee maintained a most determined silence while they awaited the arrival of the time for the stated church meeting.

The days went by one by one until the much dreaded occasion came at which the report of their official visit must be made. After some informal matters of business had been disposed of, the committee was called upon for a report.

The spokesman arose to discharge a very unpleasant duty, not so much on account of Pastor Abercrombie as on that of the committee. The report was very brief and expressed in language which did not lead to discussion or inquiry as follows:

“The committee chosen at the last church meeting to call upon our pastor, have attended to their duty and desire to report, --that he gave us Christian satisfaction.”

111 RAMBLES AROUND MY DISTRICT By Rev. Roland D. Sawyer

Quaint Characters in Pelham Half a Century Ago

William F. Avery of Ware Center, now confined to his home with failing health, can entertain one by the hour with his stories of the quaint characters of Pelham of fifty and sixty years ago. Mr. Avery moved to Pelham from Chicopee Falls with his father in

1858, and he lived in several places around town; at first in the Blake Farm, later burned; then on the Ezek Cook place, then the Zibaa Cook place in West Pelham, then the Sol

Sister pace, then the King place, etc. Mr. Avery’s father, who was a teamster and farmer, hauled the new church bell from Amherst about 1865, and when he crossed the line into

Pelham, he started the bell ringing and kept it ringing till he reached Pelham Hill, the people all coming to their doors and voicing their welcome to the bell.

Slick Sam Keith and Frank Packard, two characters in those days did quite a business for a while, selling, for a long chain of ailments, some “purely vegetable pills,” and published their testimonials of cures. The pills were ordinary peas, sugar coated.

Ezack Cook came to Pelham from Rhode Island in 1806, bought four acres of land, and built a 25 foot square Quaker Meeting House thereon. Meetings were held till

1855 when the Meeting House, cemetery and land were sold to Zibaa Cook and the place was bought by the Averys in 1864 and the old church turned into a barn which still stands. And the stones, ordinary field stones, have never been removed from the old-time cemetery. The Quakers in their desire for simplicity were sternly set against any names being on gravestones, and when one somewhat prosperous and heretical Quaker put up for a relative a stone with the name thereon, it disappeared within 24 hours. Many years

112 later Nat Cook, a descendant of old Ezack, found it in the old Cook barn, carefully hidden away.

Then there was Abel Brown, who with his good wife raised a family of 15 children in a very small house; and after they were all married and away, he built the largest house in either Pelham or Belchertown for himself and wife saying he was going to have room enuf he never had when the children were home.

Then Sol Sister, who rigged a net which would fall over a big square of spaded land on which buck wheat has been strawed, and in which he often caught as many as

100 wild pigeons at a time. He had two such devices in two places, and made quite a big selling them, either dead or alive. These birds are now supposed to be entirely extinct in

America.

And then two religious zealots, who appeared at church with badly swollen and sore faces, having pulled their beard all out, because they could not find in the New

Testament any place where shaving was authorized.

And Deacon Blake of Chicopee, agent of a mill there, who owned the Blake place where Avery lived as a lad, and when jumping on the hay one day ran into quantities of lead pipe and other valuable material, which evidently the thrifty deacon had brought up from the mill.

Verily, Pelham has an interesting history.

113 CONKEY’ S TAVERN IN PELHAM, MASSACHUSETTS By Harlan A. Howard

On the “Middle Range” road and really low down in the “Hollow” was the old

Conkey Tavern, built in 1758 by William Conkey and whose son, William Conkey Jr., was proprietor at the opening of the agitation which later developed into Shay’s

Rebellion.

Situated in the deep narrow valley between Pelham East Hill and Pelham West

Hill, it was a lonely place for a tavern. No house could be seen from it, yet these very factors made it an ideal place for Daniel Shays and other discontented men to gather to foment opposition to the government. Shays’ Rebellion began and ended at Conkey’s

Tavern!

* * *

On the preceding page you will see a photograph taken just a few months before the tavern was razed in 1883. It was a structure of great classic colonial charm. The sunlight shows that the building faced to the south; the glass window panes were six above nine; the massive chimney was in the center but on the back slope of the roof. A single triangular pediment and fluted pilaster can be seen at the front entrance. The tavern “hugs” the ground, which means low studded rooms; the straight ridgepole line indicates tremendously strong framing timbers.

This noble building was not quite a true “Salt Box” type. It was a farmhouse with tavern facilities. Historical records tell us that the farm, barns and land were to the left of the photograph; the well was to the right. There were three rooms on the first floor and two rooms upstairs. No plaster was used. All rooms were roughly sheathed on thee walls

114 with bare joists in most of the ceilings. To the left was the barroom with the bar located in the left front corner; to the right was the dining room. A lean-to on the rear provided the long kitchen which had a pantry at each end.

* * *

“William Conkey, June ye 21st, 1776” was inscribed on the wide stone lintel over the great fireplace in the kitchen. The date was engraved on the stone to mark the year when the stone chimney was taken down and relayed with bricks from the lintel level to the top.

The tavern sign was located on the right front corner. Indentations of the muzzles of muskets in the barroom sheathing, made by impatient Shays’ men while waiting for flip were plain to be seen as long as the tavern stood. All furniture was plain and rugged.

It had to be!

The cellar of the tavern was deep; the stone walls were thick and they inclined outward from the bottom. Barrels of West India \rum and casks of wine and brandy, orange and clove rested upon huge perfectly flat stones which covered the cellar floor.

The men who came over the hills and through the “Hollow” to gather at the old tavern have all gone to their eternal rest. Water now covers the land, yet the memories of

Conkey’s Tavern will live on forever in the history of rural life in the 18th century

America.

115 PELHAM From History of Western Massachusetts By Josiah Gilbert Holland Springfield: Samuel Bowles, 1855, Vol. 2 [Pelham and Prescott Charters]

The territory of Pelham originally formed a portion of the “Equivalent Lands,” and account of which is given in the history of Belchertown. It was sold by the state of

Connecticut to col. John Stoddard and others of Northampton, and was at first popularly denominated “Stoddard’s Town.” The lands, while in a wild condition, were much injured in timber and soil by the burnings to which they were subjected by hunters, and by those on the Connecticut, who, by this means, secured a favorite pasturage for their cattle. This burning was prosecuted for some time after the settlement of the town, and, in fact, until a committee was chosen by the town to prosecute the offenders. When the town was purchased, the first settlers were mostly residents of Worcester. They had formed a company for the purpose of purchasing a part or the whole of a township to settle upon, and sent forward Robert Peebles and James Thornton, as a committee to make arrangements for them. The examined Stoddard’s Town, and made a contract with

Col. Stoddard for the purchase and speedy settlement of the territory. This contract was made on the 26th day of September, 1738, and arrangements were immediately made to organize the proprietors, and take possession of the lands. The company numbered 34, and a deed was given on the 1st of January, 1739, to all of them, naming each, and the proportions of land which each should hold. The territory seems to have been divided into sixty parts, and while one proprietor had but one sixtieth, anther had five sixtieths, according, doubtless, to what they had paid of the purchase money. The first meeting of

116 the proprietors was held in Worcester,, at the house of Capt. Daniel Haywood, Feb. 26th,,

1739, when a committee was chosen to survey the town, and lay out sixty-one home lots.

This indicates that the number of proprietors had been increased, as a lot was laid out for each proprietor, and one for the first settled minister. In the following May, the proprietors met again, at the same place. The surveying committee made their report, and the proprietors drew for their lots. At this meeting it was “voted that the sum of £be allowed and paid towards making a road to the meeting house, (so called) and from thence to east Hadley, (viz.) a bridle road.” All subsequent meetings of the proprietors were held in Worcester, until Aug. 6th, 1749, when a meeting was held at the house of

John Ferguson, in the new township, named by the proprietors “Lisbon,” otherwise “New

Lisburne.” By this name, with its variations and various spellings, it was known until the incorporation of the town with its present name.

Pelham was incorporated as a town, January 15, 1743, and the first town meeting was held on the succeeding 19th of April. The name was undoubtedly given in honor of

Lord Pelham of England, who passed through the site about that time, and “thereby hangs a tale,” or rather several tales. One is that, in acknowledgment of the honor thus conferred, Lord Pelham represented the church with a bell, which was allowed to remain in Boston until it was sold for freight and storage. Another is hat it was purchased by the

Old South Church in Boston, of the Pelham Church. Both stories are improbable. One thing is certain: the bell, if bell there was, never arrived in Pelham.

The ancestors of the settlers of Pelham were Irish Presbyterians. In the agreement between Co. Stoddard and the original Committee, occurs this passage: “It is agreed that families of good conversation be settled on the premises, who shall be such as were the

117 inhabitants of the kingdom of Ireland or their descendants, being protestants, and none to be admitted but such as bring good and undeniable credentials or certificates of their being persons of good conversation, and of the Presbyterian persuasion as used in the

Church of Scotland, and conform to the discipline thereof.” August 6th, 1740 it was

“voted to build a meeting house, to raise £100 towards building it, and choose a committee to agree with a workman to raise the house, and provide for the settling of a minister.” Subsequent to this, £220 were raised, in two installments, for the erection and completion of the structure. April 19, 1743, a meeting was held at the meeting house, and May 26, of the same year, measures ere taken to “glaze the meeting house, to build a pulpit, and underpin the house at the charge of the town.” In this house, the pubic school was kept for several years. In 1755, the town “voted to build three school houses, one at the meeting house, one at the West end of the town, and one on the East hill.” As in most of the new towns of the region, it was several years before the meeting house was thoroughly finished. In 1818, it was removed a few feet from its original location, a thoroughly repaired.

A Rev. Mr. Johnson of Londonderry was first called to settle as pastor, but the call was not accepted. In the summer of 1742, Rev. Robert Abercrombie commenced preaching in Pelham, and a Presbyterian Church was organized in 1743. Mr.

Abercrombie preached the most of the time until March 5th, 1744, when a call to settle permanently was extended to him. He accepted the call, and was ordained on the succeeding 30th of August. The sermon as preached by Rev. Jonathan Edwards of

Northampton. Mr. Abercrombie was a native of Edinburgh, Scotland, and was there educated. He was a profound scholar, and possessed a library surpassed by few in its

118 time, which is now in the possession of one of his descendants. The date of his dismissal is not recorded. He was succeeded by Rev. Richard C. Graham, Rev. Nathaniel Merrill,

Rev. Thomas Oliver, Rev. Elijah Brainerd, Rev. Winthrop Bailey, Rev. Frederick Janes, and Rev. A. C. Page. The church has now no settled pastor.

The distance of the residence of those who settled in the Eastern part of Pelham with a portion of New Salem, was incorporated as the East Parish of Pelham, on the 28th of June 1786. The subsequent history of this parish will be found detailed in the history of Prescott.

A Methodist Episcopal Church was formed in the West part of the town about

1830, and in that year both the Congregational and the Methodist churches built for themselves convenient and beautiful houses of worship.

The people of Pelham were on the right side in the Revolution. November 3d,

1773, they addressed the Boston committee in a strain of which the following extract is an illustration. “We are not at present much intimated with that pompous boasting on the other side of the waters, viz: that Great Britain could blow America into atoms.” They voted their acquiescence in, and support of, a declaration of independence, fourteen days before independence was declared, and throughout the war furnished from their slender resources their proportion of men and means for its prosecution.

Pelham has been the scene of sundry notorious adventures and events. The Shays

Rebellion is associated with the town, both as the residence of its leader, and the quarters, at one time, of a large body of insurgents. A full account of this will be found in the

Oultine History [vol/. 1, pp. 267-8-9-70-71; also 292-3-4.] Pelham was the scene, not far from the same period, of the pastoral labors of that most notorious imposter,

119 counterfeiter, and scoundrel, Stephen Burroughs. He was subsequently an inhabitant of the Hampshire county jails. It is generally supposed that he wound up his life as a roman

Catholic priest in Canada. One of his sons still lives in Montreal, and there for many years a daughter was the principal of a famous Catholic school, both of whom maintained a high and honorable character.

An attempt was made in the winters of 1852 and 1853 to have the Western portion of the town set off to Amherst. The movement did not succeed, and in the winter of 1854, the town voted its willingness to surrender its charter of incorporation, and become portions of adjoining towns—a vote which is believed to be without a precedent in the Commonwealth. A petition was made to the Legislature in accordance with this vote, but it failed of success, and Pelham is thus in existence against its will.

Among those originating in Pelham, who have adopted a professional life are

Ithamar Conkey, now a resident of Amherst, and for many years Judge of Probate for

Hampshire County; and Dr. Daniel Thompson and Dr. James Thompson, brothers and partners in professional business at Northampton. The Messrs. Southworth, the well and widely known paper manufacturers of West Springfield, were also natives of Pelham.

The usual amount of money raised annually in the town by taxation is $1,500, of which $450 is appropriated for schools. Palm leaf hats are the principal articles manufactured in the town, though, of manufactories proper, there are none. The population in 1840 was 1,000; in 1850, 872; decrease in ten years, 128.

120 PRESCOTT

A township of land equal to six miles square, was granted to sixty proprietors, residents in Salem, on the 31st of December, 1734, and an additional grant of 4,000 acres was made June 17, 1742. This territory subsequently became New Salem, and is now mostly located within the county of Franklin. Jeremiah Meacham was the first settler upon this grant, in 1737. The grant “equal to six miles square” was laid out in an oblong form, extending North and South nearly ten miles. The additional grant of 4,000 acres was added to the North end of the township, which made it about thirteen miles long.

This form of territory was extremely inconvenient for those living at the extremities.

Many attempts were made to have the town divided, but they were not successful until the 28th of January, 1822, when a tract about three miles long was cut off from the South end of the town, and added to the East Parish of Pelham, was incorporated as a town, with the name of Prescott. Prescott is thus the youngest town in Hampshire County, and has but a brief history. The name of the first man who settled upon the resent territory of

Prescott is not known. The part taken from Pelham was probably settled first, as there were 40 families in Pelham in 1742, a date when New Salem had just begun to receive settlers.

When Prescott was incorporated, the church in the East parish of Pelham had become nearly or quite extinct, but it was re-organized January 15, 1823, and even then could count but twelve members. The ministers of the original church, thus revived, were Rev. Mathias Cazier, a graduate of the College of New Jersey in 1785, and

Reverend Sebastian C. Cabot, a graduate of Dartmouth College in 1797. After the reorganization of this church, no minister was settled for several years. On the 27th of

121 October, 1827, Rev., Ebenezer Brown of Brimfield, a graduate of Yale College in 1813, was installed as pastor.. During his ministry an extensive revival was enjoyed, and the church greatly enlarged. Mr. Brown was dismissed March 25, 1835, and was succeeded by Rev. Job Cushman, who was installed on the succeeding 27th of October. Mr.

Cushman remained four years, and was dismissed in October 1839. Rev. Francis Wood was installed in October 1839, and dismissed in November 1846. The church then remained several years without a pastor. On the 23rd of February, 1853, Rev. S. B.

Gilbert was installed as pastor, but did not remain in that relation an entire year, having been dismissed January 25, 1854.

Prescott is divided into five school districts. The amount of money6 raised by tax in 1854, for schools, was $350. The total amount of taxation for all purposes was $2,050.

The town contains about 244 square miles of territory, about 50 miles of roads, and numbers 152 ratable polls.

The leading industrial interest of the town is agriculture. Beef, pork, butter and cheese are produced in considerable quantities. The females of the town braid larger numbers of palm leaf hats annually. The population of Prescott in 1849 was 781; in

1850, 702; the decrease in ten years, 72.

122 THE AFFAIRS OF THR CHURCHES

Pelham was founded upon, and its moral life steeped in a religious faith. The

Church was the town, and the town was the Church for a good many years. Yet the affairs of the early church were hectic and so divisive as to make survival seem like a near miracle when viewed by present day practices. It is logical to think that a people faced with all the hazards of living in a strange country, in an untamed wilderness, with two unsuccessful attempts to locate behind them, yet holding to a common faith and purpose, would strive to agree for the sake of strength and the benefits of harmony. But there were serious differences among the most prominent settlers from the beginning, and on such subjects as the calling of the first minister, Mr. Robert Abercrombie. This young man was not yet ordained, but he must have been known to most of them because of his having preached in the area around Worcester and Boston. His official call to serve ther parish came after months of waiting for the dissenters to agree on his coming. Finally, those proprietors who attended the Town Meeting of March, 1743 gave him their unanimous call. He was endorsed by a good friend, the already famous Jonathan

Edwards who preached his ordination sermon in August the next year.

Ministers have come and gone, but the first—Mr. Abercrombie—was one of the most highly qualified, talented, and best educated man ever to occupy a pulpit in Pelham.

At Eidenburg University he was graduated with the distinction of being a profound scholar, familiar with Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Syriac. In ecclesiastical matters he was a person of purpose, determination, discipline, and devoted to the doctrines of the

Presbyterian Church of Scotland. He was also sensitive to his rights and privileges as a minister in high standing.

123 Perhaps during his preaching in Worcester he may have locked horns with several determined, resolute Scots who considered their own opinions to be as worthy as his. At any rate, their differences were never resolved during the ten or more years he preached in the old Meeting House (now the Town Hall). They caused tensions and resentments that apparently had noting to do with his qualifications or his character, but nevertheless caused him, according to his letters to the Presbytery, “much distress.” No mention of how the Abercrombie family supported itself during the several years, at different times, when some of the leaders succeeded in getting the town to withhold his salary. One can easily imagine the controversies that ensued in the homes and community, for a great many people were loyal to Mr. Abercrombie. There were eye-to-eye confrontations also over he touchy doctrine of infant baptism.

After the Rev. Abercrombie was dismissed under protest, he continued to live in

Pelham but was not allowed by the Presbytery to preach here. He died in 1786 at the home where he first came to live. He was a good father to a fine family of ten sons and daughters. At least two of his descendants live in this vicinity. They are Mrs. Alice

Merriam, a great, great granddaughter, and Mr. Robert A. Merriam, her son, and his family.

The Merriams presented the Pelham Historical Society with a copy of a brochure written by Mr. Merriam on the Abercrombie Family. In a recent meeting, they also made a gift of all the books that are left of the Rev. Abercrombie’s library. These will be on display as soon as the museum is opened to the public.

Nine years after Mr. Abercrombie was dismissed, very few men had preached to the people of Pelham. The best interests of the settlement were considered jeopardized

124 by the inability of the people to decide upon and keep a settled minister. The grand jury of Hampshire County took the town fathers to task twice because of this circumstance.

Suppliers came and went. The people were easy prey for the notorious Stephen

Burroughs, who proved to be more than even they could handle.

As long as the Presbyterian creed was adhered to in Pelham, the custom of issuing a metal Communion token was in use. These tokens were cast of various metals, most of lead, and bore the initials P P for Presbyterian Pelham. After examination of church members by the minister or deacon, only those who convinced the clergy of their worthiness received this symbol of piety. It entitled only them to taske communion. This custom was peculiar to a very few towns in New England. Up to the present time none of the Pelham tokens have been located, but the Pelham Historical Society would be very grateful for information leading to the securing of one for the museum.

In 1786 a second parish was organized to include “all that part of Pelham East of the River,” and also included some people living in New Salem. It had a stormy existence for the forty or so years the people struggled to find a minister who met all requirements.

Schisms among the two Presbyterian churches led to the forming of the Calvinist church in 1822, which functioned for only five or six years.

A last record of admissions to the Calvinistic church in Pelham was made in

October, 1827. Between the time the church ceased to exist and 1837 there was, for various reasons, little interest in trying to keep a minister in residence of any denomination. No stated preaching services were held in the hill meeting house.

125 The Quakers had arrived around 1800 and settled mostly in what is now West

Pelham. Their meeting house and cemetery stood on about four acres of land bordering upon the “highway leading from Amherst to Boston.” This spot was used for about fifty years as a place of worship by a few “plain, quiet people.”

In 1831 a Baptist church was organized in Packardville, a meeting house built, and for thirty years a quite prosperous society flourished. In 1868, after the Baptist work had closed, there was a movement to organize a society that should include those of every evangelic faith who lived in the neighborhood. Thus the Union Congregational Society of Packardville came into existence. A beautiful church was erected on a laurel covered hill, and it served as the center of worship until the community around it was taken over by the Metropolitan Water Company in the late 1930s.

During the year of 1831 much interest had been built up in Methodism by the

Rev. Isaac Stoddard, who had preached in the Meeting House on Pelham Hill. Nine years later, in thee summer of 1840, the Methodist Episcopal Church in West Pelham was dedicated. At the time the Metropolitan Water Company was taking down all the homes and the church in Packardville, the Methodists joined with the Congregational societies of Pelham Hill and Packardville and the United Church of Pelham was organized.

Services are held in the former Methodist Church building, which is nearing 130 years of age.

A year before the Methodists built their church in West Pelham, the people of

Pelham Hill had organized under the name of the Evangelical Congregational Church of

Pelham and started to build the church which is now a part of the complex of buildings on the hill. The society ceased to function independently at the time the United Church

126 of West Pelham was organized. The building, which had fallen into great need of repairs, has been partly restored by the Pelham Historical society, and will become the town’s first museum when funds are available for the work to be completed.

And so, while churches and the support of churches have had a varied history in

Pelham, perhaps more than in many towns which were founded by people of religious backgrounds, the town has never abandoned itself to the belief that it can survive as a better place to live without a house of worship.

127 PELHAM’S ANCIENT MEETING PLACE From The Daily Hampshire Gazette Wednesday, March 30, 1898

It may be of some interest to some of our readers to learn that the last annual meeting at Pelham was the 155th yearly meeting of the town since its incorporation in

1743, and all of them have been held in the same building. It was built originally by the

Scotch-Irish settlers for a meeting house, the work having been commenced in 1739.

John Di ck and his brother Thomas were the builders. It was used for public worship until 1839 when a new church was erected. The town meetings were held in the meeting house because there was no other suitable place, and because the church business as well as the town business was attended to at the annual meetings. The annual meetings were sometimes held in January, but generally in March or April, but there were many special meetings held without regard to the season, and, there being no provision for warming the meeting house, there was no alternative but to shiver while the important business matters were under discussion. They did have, however, one source of relief from the intense cold, for the town records abound with records of adjournments to the tavern of Landlord

Hatch or Landlord Shirtlieff, or whoever the keeper of the near-by tavern might be, for 15 minutes to an hour, presumably to warm up, but that is never stated upon the record. If there is another town in the state that has held its annual and other town meetings in the same building for as long, or for a longer period, I should be pleased to hear from them.

C. O. Parmenter Amherst, March 15, 1898

128 PELHAM IN SHAYS’ REBELLION

To provide an educational component in the town’s bicentennial activities, Pelham Historical Commission members Margaret Hepler, Barbara Jenkins, and Emma Weaver assembled an exhibit. With the Assistance of Sidney Kaplan and Gregory Nobles they have attempted to describe the local Pelham context for the events of the Rebellion. Following is an abridged version of the exhibit.

Five years after the last battle of the Revolutionary War, discontented farmers from Massachusetts took up arms against their new government. These men, many of whom had fought for independence, were now faced with heavy taxes and debts which they could not pay. They felt that Boston had replaced the British Crown as their oppressor. Entirely consistent with their actions in the past, the farmers sought solutions in legal ways, and when unsuccessful, reluctantly took up arms.

Pelham was an important center of rebel activity. It was also the home of Daniel

Shays, a leader whose name came to be inseparably associated with the uprising.

PELHAM AFTER THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

In 1786 Pelham was a community of small farmers, numbering less than a thousand people. Within the limits of the town there were 127 houses, 98 barns, and 2 mills. In addition, several retailers and innkeepers operated businesses in their homes.

Most farms consisted of a few acres under cultivation, some hayfields, some pasture, some apple trees for the yearly pressing of cider, a woodlot, and a considerable acreage of undeveloped land.

Only a few families in Pelham lived by what then might have been described as middle-class standards. Lacking the rich alluvial soil of older towns like Northampton and Hadley, Pelham farmers had difficulty producing enough for their families. Rarely

129 was there a surplus which could be exchanged for goods. But the very scarcity of produce for trade gave Pelham’s residents an economic independence from valley merchants and from the commerce of the eastern part of the state. Neighbors bartered goods and labor among themselves and provided for necessities from the resources at hand.

The difficulties of Pelham families intensified as each generation sought to provide land for its maturing sons. Farms were divided and became progressively smaller. After the Revolution, most Pelham families could give land to only one son; others who wanted their own farms had to migrate to the frontier—Berkshire county,

New York State, or Vermont.

The scarcity of land was a regional problem, and after the war there was an increase in landless transients in all the towns of the area. The presence of a large number of young men without land, one-third of voting males in Pelham in 1784, contributed to the restlessness of the population.

From the beginning, Pelham’s Scotch-Irish settlers had sought isolation and independence. In Ireland, before their voyage to Massachusetts, they had been poor tenant farmers. In Worcester, their Presbyterian church had been burned by

Congregational neighbors. For them, isolation and a chance to exist without interference were more important than contact with the commerce of the more prosperous parts of the state.

Between the town’s founding in 1740 and the Revolution there are several recores of Pelham residents acting against threats to their independence:

1762 Pelham townspeople prevented sheriff’s deputy Solomon Boltwood of Amherst from performing his official duties. According to court records,

130 five men and four women confronted him “with axes, clubs, sticks, hot water and hot soap in a riotous and tumultuous manner.”

1773 Pelham was one of only seven of forty-one Hampshire county towns that responded to early letters of the Boston Committee of correspondence, which alerted the western part of the start to Britain’s economic restrictions. The town pledged to remain united with the common cause of American liberty.

1774 A mob from Pelham went to Hatfield and made prisoners of Israel Williams and his son. Tories from a prominent family, they then took their prisoner to Hadley where they confined them to a house with a clogged chimney, smoked them overnight, and made them sign a statement condemning Britain’s Intolerable Acts.

THE POST-WAR ECONOMIC PINCH

As the Revolutionary War ended, taxes and inflation surged out of control and tremendous financial burdens were laid upon subsistence communities like Pelham. To pay the war debt, the General Court (state legislature) voted a new system of direct taxation based on polls and real estate. Merchants, whose assets were primarily in goods, paid little tax compared with farmers. Traditionally, a farming community like Pelham paid debts with goods, but the new taxes could legally be paid only in coin. It was difficult for rural people to acquire coin, which everywhere in the state was in short supply.

In addition to increased taxation, for many in the county there were also heavy burdens of debt to merchants. As the war ended, traders from the east coast renewed dealings with the British firms which extended them credit. Imports flooded American markets. In the mid-1780s the British began to press for payment of debts in specie or hard money. East coast merchants then asked for hard money from smaller merchants across the state, and they, in turn, demanded specie from the farmers.

131 Pelham townspeople, perhaps because of their isolation and poverty, had fewer dealing with merchants and did not suffer the same number of prosecutions for debt as did other communities. But taxes alone were a great hardship, and by the mid-1780s there was a feeling that little had been accomplished by the Revolution. They had fought to keep outside powers from meddling in their lives, and now, instead of the Crown,

Boston had become the threat and the intruder.

REBELLION EMERGES: PETITIONS AND CONVENTIONS

The people of Western Massachusetts had been protesting their increasingly hard times since the last year of the Revolutionary War. Hampshire County conventions in

1782 suggested a number of reforms, but in the following years, relief measures did not pass in the General Court. Many of the hill and frontier towns did not bother to send representatives, thinking the cost too high, so east coast opinions dominated the

Legislature. Many individual towns also petitioned the General Court. Between 17884 and 1786, seventy-three rural towns, or a third of all towns in the state, sent petitions.

These included Pelham, which in a January 1786 town meeting voted to petition for an issue of paper money.

When the General Court adjourned in June of 1786 without giving any relief, people in the west were outraged. Pelham took a leadership role in arranging a new

Hampshire County convention. After representatives of thirteen neighboring towns met at John Bruce’s Tavern in Pelham, fifty towns responded to their invitation to meet in

Hatfield in late August. The Hatfield convention compiled a long list of grievances, and recommended peaceful means of redress rather than mob action. The petition of the

132 Hampshire County convention served as a model for subsequent conventions in

Worcester, Bristol, Middlesex, and Berkshire counties.

COURT CLOSINGS

Just six days after the Hatfield convention urged people to abstain from unlawful assemblies, 1,500 men ed by Luke Day of West Springfield appeared in Northampton to stop the Court of Common Pleas, the debtor court. The Regulators, as they first called themselves, were orderly in behavior and successful in stopping the court. The next week other groups of revels closed the court in Worcester, and the week after that interfered with courts in Concord, Taunton, and Great Barrington.

Another large group of a thousand men, marching with fife and drum, arrived at the Springfield Courthouse on September 26. In command was a new leader, Daniel

Shays of Pelham. Opposing Shays and his men in Springfield was General William

Shepard of Westfield leading 600 Hampshire militia and 200 respectable gentlemen who, fearing trouble, had volunteered to oppose the rebels. Shays’ men wore sprigs of hemlock in their hats; Shepard’s men identified themselves with pieces of white paper in theirs, but the ranks were not clearly defined. Many of the militia traded the white insignia for the green and joined the insurgents. Even Shepard, a farmer himself, sympathized with the rebels’ grievances. After parades and counter-parades, and petitions presented with polished military etiquette, Shepard withdrew to protect the federal arsenal while Shays and his men occupied the courthouse.

The actions of the farmers were entirely consistent with precedents a decade earlier. In 1774 a crowd had closed the court in Springfield and forced the judges to sign

133 statements. The rebels considered such actions legitimate political behavior, perfectly in keeping with the spirit of the Revolution.

Daniel Shays insisted later that he had been pressed into service somewhat unwillingly. He had not joined earlier attempts to stop the courts, but he was known as a good leader from the Revolution and was valued for his military experience. When the

Hampshire men persisted in approaching him, he eventually “could not withstand their importunities.”

DANIEL SHAYS BEFORE THE REBELLION

Shays had been born of Irish parents in Hopkinton in 1747, which made him 39 in

1786. At the time of the Rebellion, he had been married to Abigail Gilbert of Brookfield and a father for fifteen years. After working as a hired laborer in Brookfield, he had bought some land in Shutesbury just before the Revolution. Then, enlisting n Captain

Dickinson’s company of Amherst-area men, he fought at Bunker Hill, was wounded, and promoted to sergeant. In Colonel Varnum’s Rhode Island regiment he rose to the rank of lieutenant, and in Rufus Putnam’s Massachusetts regiment, to captain. He was at the capture of Burgoyne and the storming of Stony Point, where his bravery gained the attention of the young Marquis de Lafayette. Shays was one of the officers to whom

Lafayette gave ornamental swords at Saratoga, but because of debts, he sold the sword, to the great disdain of his fellow officers.

Perhaps the unpopularity of this action caused him to resign from the army in

1780. Or perhaps it was the need to support his family. In any case he moved at that time to the farm he had bought in 1778, after selling his Shutesbury farm; the new farm

134 was located on Pelham’s east hill. As soon as he arrived in Pelham, his leadership abilities were recognized. Shays served as a delegate to several county conventions and held the town offices of warden and member of the Committee of Safety. He drilled town troops in the field by Conkey’s Tavern.

Though Daniel Shays called himself “gentleman,” he felt keenly as his neighbors the pinch of debt and hard times. During the war his family was forced to borrow money from William Conkey, the innkeeper, and twice before the outbreak of the rebellion he was a defendant in debt cases.

His farm in Pelham could hardly have been prosperous, located as it was in a narrow hollow on a rocky hillside above the Swift River. His house and outbuildings were very modest, described by an unfriendly observer during the rebellion as “a style, it having much more the appearance of a den for brutes, than a habitation for men.” In the tax valuation of 1784, Shays’ farm consisted of a house, a barn, three acres of tilled land, four acres of woodland, 62 acres of unimproved land, and 30 acres of unimprovable land.

He had a horse, a cow, and two pigs. A third of Pelham landowners paid more taxes than he did.

THE OTHER PELHAM REBELS

Most other Pelham rebels were young, in their mid-twenties and early thirties, and unmarried, or just beginning their families. About ninety Pelham men, just over forty percent of the town’s adult males, took an active part in the Rebellion. When one considers the numbers of supporting family members, the vast majority of townspeople must have been behind the Rebellion.

135 More than a third of Pelham’s rebels had no land of their own, and were dependent sons, transients, and farm laborers. Half the Pelham insurgents were veterans of the Revolution, but for most, their terms of service had been short and at the very end of the war. Just three of the rebels, including Shays, had been tried for debt.

BOSTON REACTS

The legislature opened in a special session on September 27, just as Shays and

Shepard faced each other in Springfield. It was quick to pass the Militia Act, which made any soldier involved in rebellious behavior liable to court martial, and the Riot Act, which forbade gatherings of more than twelve armed persons and empowered sheriffs to kill rioters.

To the citizens of Pelham, the Legislature’s actions seemed to call for some response—but what? In early October, the town voted again to hold a convention to petition Boston. But by mid-October, some people who were alarmed by Boston’s actions sent a circular letter to all the towns of Hampshire County:

“Pelham, Oct. 13, 1786 Gentlemen, By information from the General Court they are determined to call all those who appeared to stop the court to condign punishment. Therefore, I request you to assemble your men together to see that they are well armed and equipped with 60 rounds each man, and be ready to turn out at a minute’s warning; likewise be properly organized with officers. Daniel Shays”

Shays later said that action was taken by a committee, and that others signed his name.

Governor Bowdoin saw a copy of the letter and shared it with the General Court in early November. The legislators quickly passed more repressive measures including suspension of the Writ of habeas Corpus, allowing suspects to be imprisoned anywhere in

136 the Commonwealth. To quiet the angry rural population, the General Court finally enacted some small reforms as well, and passed the Indemnity Act which extended a pardon to participants in previous uprisings who would swear an oath of allegiance.

Daniel Shays said in a later interview that the rebels had not heard of the

Indemnity Act when they marched on the Worcester court November 21. That act infuriated Bowdoin, and he jailed the eastern rebel leaders Job Shattuck, Benjamin Page, and Oliver Parker. To deal with the western counties, Bowdoin called on a council of advisers to plan a military solution.

A group of self-appointed merchant horsemen from Boston rode to Shrewsbury where they attacked and wounded several rebels. “The seeds of war are now sown,” wrote the Shrewsbury men to Shays and other rebel leaders quartered in Rutland. The abuse of their eastern supporters only strengthened the purpose of the western insurgents.

They marched again to the Worcester court on December 5.

A few days later Pelham’s Daniel Gray wrote an explanation of grievances in “An

Address to the People” of Hampshire County. At the same time, a committee of seventeen leaders, meeting in Pelham, divided the three western counties into military districts, appointed commanders, and notified towns to organize: Daniel Shays of

Pelham, Joseph Hinds of Greenwich, and Joel Billings of Amherst together were to command the third regiment. The committee also petitioned the governor, asking for the release of Shattuck and other prisoners, the adjournment of courts until after the April elections, and a general pardon. Amidst their military plans, there was still hope for a peaceful solution.

137 On December 26, insurgents again targeted the Springfield court. Daniel Shays arrived after the action, but his name appeared on the petition handed to ther judges, signed for him by Thomas Grover. Government observers said Shays appeared like a man “crowded with embarrassments,” in contrast to other cocky rebel leaders. The next day Shays expressed the hope that no more force would be necessary.

Though his name had become the rallying cry of the rebellion, Daniel Shays himself felt much ambivalence about his leadership. Interviews with several people in

December and January showed how little enthusiasm he felt for more confrontations.

Talking with Rufus Putnam, his former revolutionary commander, he denied being the rebels’ sole leader. “I at their head? I am not!” Shays said he’d had no part in the recent

Springfield closing because it was inconsistent with the petition for pardon. In a

Massachusetts Centinel interview, Shays said he had put his hand to the plow and could not now look back, but wished he had not gotten himself into “this scrape.” To William

Bigelow, in another conversation, Shays said it was always against his inclination to be engaged in the Rebellion and hoped it would be peaceably settled.

In early January, Governor Bowdoin proposed the formation of a special army to suppress the Rebellion in the western part of the state. He had suggested to U. S.

Secretary of War, Henry Knox, months earlier, that federal troops should be sent to restore order in Massachusetts. While on Knox’s advice congress had voted to raise a federal army, none of the states voted to fund it. The state militias of western

Massachusetts were sympathetic to the rebels and often went over to their side. For a dependable force, an army would have to be composed of easterners opposed to the

Rebellion.

138 Benjamin Lincoln, named to head the special army, raised money from wealthy, private citizens to fund it. Both Bowdoin and Lincoln were merchant speculators with many connections in the business community, and their words were persuasive. The army grew as many sons and servants of wealthy families, as well as freemasons and members of the Order of Cincinnati enlisted. In rural areas,. However, only a fraction of the allotted troops could be raised. On January 19, the special army headed west out of

Boston.

Meanwhile, Bowdoin’s arrest warrant for sixteen rebel leaders added to the alarm western families felt at the news of Lincoln’s army. They began to lose home in thepossibility of reform Armed conflict seemed imminent. On January 15 at a mee4ting in Pelham, the committee of rebel leaders decided to ask their forces to assemble Still hoping to avert violence, they again sent a petition to Bowdoin offering to give up the fight in exchange for pardons.

CONFRONTATION AT THE SPRINGFIELD ARSENAL

The rebels realized that their bet hope lay in arming themselves with the guns and ammunition from the federal arsenal in Springfield before Lincoln’s army arrived from

Boston. General William Shepard heard of their plans and on January 18 occupied

Springfield with 900 men. More than 2,000 insurgents were approaching: Eli Parsons led several hundred men from Berkshire County, Luke Day, 900 from the West

Sprignfield area, and Daniel Shays, 1,200 men from the northeast.

On January 24, Shays sent a message to Luke Day to coordinate an attack on the arsenal on the 25th. The message sent back by Day requesting a day’s delay was

139 intercepted. Shays interpreted the lack of response as agreement, and therefore proceeded on schedule.

At the arsenal, Shepard warned Shays that the militia would fire if the rebels did not halt their advance. The cannon fired warnings over the heads of the advancing rebels, but since they did not stop, then fired into their midst. Without firing any shots, the rebels fled in confusion, leaving four of their men dead.

By January 29, the retreating rebel forces had reached Pelham where they divided to camp on snowy ground near the meeting house and near Hinds’ tavern on east hill.

Daniel shays lodged at the Conkey tavern in the valley between the camps. Lincoln pursued the insurgents and set up camp in Hadley on January 29. For several days letters passed between the two camps. Shays requested a truce until the General Court could act on a petition sent by the rebels.

On February 3, Shays moved his troops to Petersham. Lincoln, hearing of the move, lost no time in pursuit. Through Amherst, Shutesbury, and New Salem, the state army marched in deep snow and bitter cold. As day turned to night, a violent snowstorm arrived. The route lay across high lands and offered no protection; stopping would have meant greater danger than the frostbite many already suffered. In the morning, after a thirty mile march, they reached Petersham, taking the rebels by surprise. A few rebels were captured, but most, including Daniel Shays, managed to escape. Many of the rebels returned to their homes, but the leaders sought protection from arrest in Vermont.

140 THE QUELLING OF REBELLION

The same day as the surprise attack in Petersham, the General Court, reconvening in Boston, declared a state of “open, unnatural, unprovoked, and wicked rebellion,” and gave almost unlimited powers to Governor Bowdoin to end it. The legislators passed the

Disqualification Act, which made it illegal for former rebels to hold public office, teach school, keep taverns, or vote. Governor Bowdoin offered pardons to all but the leaders if those who had taken up arms would swear oaths of allegiance to the state.

But in mid-February tempers were still hot, and few rebels surrendered their arms.

There were sporadic attacks on merchants, especially in Berkshire County, throughout the winter. In Sheffield, the bloodiest confrontation of the Rebellion left three government soldiers and more than 30 rebels dead. In Hampshire county, incidents of violence also continued. Rebels burned the woodlands belonging to William Shepard and mutilated his horses. Ebenezer Mattoon, an officer of state troops from Amherst had to move out of town because of raids on his home. Eli Parsons, from his exile in

Vermont, urged more resistance:

“Will you now tamely suffer your arms to be taken from you, your estates to be confiscated, and even swear to support a constitution and form of government . . . which common sense and your conscience declare to be iniquitous and cruel?”

In March, however, many rebels began to swear oaths of allegiance and return to the springtime labors of their farms. Many others could not accept returning to their homes under the circumstances, and packed family and belongings off to the frontier. By the end of March, more than 2,000 people had arrived in Vermont, and “columns of refugee rebels” spilled over the New York border from the Berkshires.

141 The state elections in April changed the composition of the stater government, but relief for the rural population was slow in coming. While John Hancock replaced James

Bowdoin and a majority of legislators were unseated, strong anti-rebellion policies persisted. Sam Adams, a harsh critic of the rebels, became president of the Senate. Eight hundred new government troops marched to Berkshire County. Rebel leaders had to remain in hiding to avoid arrest. One of these, besides Daniel Shays, was Henry

McCulloch of Pelham.

McCulloch had fled to Vermont after the Petersham attack, but in March he returned to Massachusetts. Almost immediately, he was arrested and condemned to hang for high treason. He had been visible in the action in Springfieldf, riding at the head of a group of revels, hut he had not otherwise acted as a leader. In his own petition to the

Governor he explained:

“The reason of his appearing to act as an Officer was because he rode a good horse and had a foolish fondness to be thought active and alert. . . was persuaded, merely for show, to take an old cutlass just before the attack at the arsenal.”

He and his Pelham neighbors felt that it was unfair for him to have been singled out and condemned. Several letters on his behalf mentioned his youth and inexperience and the community pressure on him to participate. Ebenezer Mattoon of Amherst wrote, “He could not live in Pelham unless he joined them.” His mother, a widow, petitioned:

“Capt. Shays, Capt. Daniel Gray, Capt. Thompson, Capt. Cowden, and Capt. Conkey who all belong to Pelham and have been considered by him and others as Men of Judgment and Prudence, have been the means of his unhappy fall. These persons he has been taught to believe and obey, as officers in the Town and who have ever had the management of Town affairs.”

The prospect of Henry McCulloch’s going to the gallow for an action which many had shared only fueled the anger and alienation of Pelham townspeople.

142 They, and others from outside town who wrote letters on McCulloch’s behalf, realized that the return of the town to peaceful cooperation with the state depended on his being pardoned. Ebenezer Mattoon of Amherst observed: “If he is spared, the town of Pelham is attached to the government, if he is executed. . . the affection of the town is lost.” The many Pelham neighbors who signed the petition agreed. “In case the said unhappy prisoner would receive a pardon. . .such an act of clemency would lay them under the most particular obligations. . .to promote and secure due submission to government and

Obedience to Laws.”

On June 21, 1787, Henry McCulloch was led from the Northampton jail to the gallows to be hanged. As he stood with the rope around his neck, the sheriff announced a stay of execution. In September he was finally pardoned and freed by governor Hancock.

The Pelham community, for a second time, came to McCulloch’s assistance. As he returned to his farm and the support of his family, the town voted to cancel the back taxes he owed.

DANIEL SHAYS AFTER THE REBELLION

A leader eagerly sought by state authorities and not likely to be pardoned, Daniel

Shays fled from Petersham to the relative safety of Bennington County in the independent Republic of Vermont. He was not alone. A community of former rebels made their home with him and his family in a small valley near the New York border, not far from Salem, New York, the town settled twenty years before by emigrants from

Pelham. The town of exiles was called Sandgate, and consisted of a tavern,, a small store, a school, and 15 to 18 houses around a green. Daniel Shays lived there util his

143 pardon in 1788. Other insurgents remained until an epidemic in 1813 killed many residents, and the town was abandoned. Shays returned at least once to visit Pelham, but there is no evidence he lived there again.

Shays faced hard times throughout his life. He moved to New York State,living in many different communities and working his way westward to Livingston County where he spent his last years. It is not known when Abigail died, but as an elderly man

Shays married the widow Rhoda havens. In 1818 he applied for a military pension and with the proceeds bought twelve acres near Scottsburgh where he built a log house and frame barn. Here he lived until his death in 1825 at age 84. His grave in Conesus, New

York was marked by a rough stone inscribed with a jackknife. It was not until the 1930s that a memorial headstone was finally erected.

When Shays was living in Hungrerford, New York, he knew the young Millard

Fillmore. Fillmore and another visitor left a brief description of the ederly Daniel Shays.

They found him to be a shsort, stout, and talkative old gentleman, with a sprightly manner, who prided himself in setting a good table for his friends. One can speculate that conversations about problems at the time of the Rebellion influenced Fillmore. As a member of the New York State Legislature, he sponsored a bill, “An Act to Abolish

Imprisonment for Debt,” which gave him recognition and launched a career culminating in his becoming the thirteenth president.

PELHAM AFTER THE REBELLION

Only three years after the Rebellion, nearly half the Pelham residents who had taken part had moved away from town. By 1800 only a third remained. The émigrés

144 resettled in the hilltowns of the Berkshires or in Vermont and New York. The rebels who remained swore oaths of allegiance to the state and returned to their farms. They continued to be leaders in town affairs. For the next thirty years, there were nearly always three former rebels among the five selectmen, and a former rebel was usually the representative to the General Court.

Before the Rebellion, the town had rarely sent a representative to Boston, but in

May of n1787 Joseph Packard appeared there, and Pelham continued to have a presence in the House. For the first time as well, the town voted in gubernatorial elections, and kept a nearly perfect record of voting for winners into the nineteenth century.

While Pelham had joined the Commonwealth politically, economically its farmers continued to be in the poorest stratum of society. In 1820 almost everyone still lived on small farms, averaging four acres in cultivation. Pelham was poorer compared with other towns in the region that it was on the eve of the Rebellion, and it continued to decline through the nineteenth century. In 1900 the population had dropped to 462. The laws of the marketplace were less forgiving than the laws of the state.

Henry McCulloch was an average farmer in Pelham a decade after the Rebellion, but his worth declined, and by 1810 he was among the poorest. In 1812, at age 61, his name appeared again among the inmates of the Northampton jail; this time he was imprisoned for debt.

Adam Johnson, another Pelham rebel, fared better. In 1823 his will left $4,000 to

“the Collegiate Charity Institution in Amherst.” It was the largest bequest that school, now Amherst College, had received. Johnson Chapel was built with it, using Pelham quarry stone.

145 In the 1930s, several of those rural western towns which had played such an active part in shays’ Rebellion were dealt a fatal blow. Parts of towns and whole towns in the Swift River Valley yielded to a reservoir built to provide Boston with drinking water. Pelham’s center became its edge as its eastern residents left and their farms were destroyed. Prescott, the old East Pelham where Daniel Shays had farmed, ceased to exist.

146 A PELHAM GRAVE-YARD Opens a Forgotten Chapter in the History of Amherst College Probably Written by Charles Oscar Parmenter

The only burying place owned by the town of Pelham, beside the one in the rear of the old church which was built before 1743 and is now used as a town-house, is situated about a mile and a half west of the Center, on a by-road untraveled, save now and then by some wanderer from his native own on a visit to the resting place of his ancestors. It is a quiet resting place indeed. No sounds but the singing of birds and perhaps a distant locomotive whistle breaks upon the restful stillness in summer, and in winter naught but the chill winds whistling among the pines. The ground commands a view of the deep gorge locally known as “the valley,” the3 village of Amherst with its college buildings, and further still the Connecticut River Valley with Mt. Holyoke and

Mt. Tom and the far away ranges beyond—an outlook that will repay anyone not interested in the old burying ground for the time and cost of climbing the hillside in summer. This ancient ground has been sadly neglected by the town as no burials have been made in it for years, and large pines and other trees without regard for the graves beneath. The thickest undergrowth covered the entire tract, rendering it almost impossible to penetrate it, and nearly hiding from sight the monuments and tombstones that from time to time have been erected over the mounds. Not a grave has been opened since 1870, and for many years before nearly all burials have been made in cemeteries owned or substantially controlled by private parties or individual owners; consequently the town gave little attention to the burial places belonging to it, and with no appropriations for the purpose, town officers have excused themselves from efforts to keep it in order. This has been regretted by the better class of citizens, and in the absence

147 of a contingent fund to use for the purpose, notice was latterly given in the churches of a

“bee” or “clipping,” to which all interested were invited.

Much has thus been done in clearing out the undergrowth and trimming the larger trees so that it is possible to get around among the quaint slabs marking the ancient graves. Perhaps as old a stone as any marks the resting place of John Harkness, who died in 1772. James Harkness died in 1786 and another John Harkness in 1821. These are ancestors of Dr. Harvey W. Harkness of San Francisco. On a hillock, near the center of the enclosure, several generations of Grays lie at rest surrounded by a chain attached to rough stone posts at the corners of the allotted space. The family was once a large one, but Horace Gray is the only only one of the name in town at present. Nathaniel Gray, a rich citizen of San Francisco and brother of the former, is a descendant of those lying on the hillock. Captain Thomas Dick and Robert McCulloch, two of the sturdy Scotch-Irish first settlers of the town in 1730, lie here; the former passed away in 1774, aged 70, and the latter in 1800 at 80. A space enclosed by stout iron rods is stone posts contains the

Abercrombies, descendants of Rev. Robert Abercrombie, the first settled minister of

Pelham. Not one of the names is now living in the town, though the Abercrombies at

Greenfield are among those whose ancestors are buried in the old ground. The most noteworthy monument in the enclosure is that of the Bryant family, on which are the names of Ichabod, Seth and Philip A. Bryant, the latter killed on board the Chesapeake in the renowned naval battle in 1813. A very small enclosure within a solid wrought-iron fence contains the grave of the wife of Stuart Park, but who he was probably no one in town can tell, as it is not a common name of old or late residents.

148 Near the old road-way which brings a visitor to this secluded resting place of the dead, and toward the northeast corner of the enclosure, stands a plain white marble slab which bears this inscription:

Adam Johnson, 70 Died, August, 1823. Erected by the trustees of Amherst College in Testimony of their gratitude for the Johnson Chapel.

From this inscription it seems that on this height, from which one looks down upon

Amherst College, seemingly at his feet, lies one of the earliest substantial benefactors of that institution, one who gave it money in its infancy when few had means to give, and most of those hesitated to make gifts at a time when its success was by no means assured.

But where is Johnson Chapel? Hundreds of students have spent four years at Amherst, have climbed to the top of the old clock tower many times and looked Pelhamward, have graduatred and gone from town without vever hearing of Johnson chapel or having any knowledge of the fact that Adam Johnson of Pelham gave the money to build the old chapel with its tower when the institution was y9ung. But Dr. Humphrey, when he preached the dedicatory sermon in the chapel, in 1827, recognized Adam Johnson’s munificence by taking for his text, “Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” The words

“Johnson Chapel” were insert4d over the middle door principal entrance to the chapel apartment, and were soon carried off by students bent on mischief. In 1846 the

“gratitude” was expressed still further by erecting, at the expense of the college, the very monument now laid bare in the Pelham burial ground. Time has wrought other changes besides allowing this monument and even Johnson Chapel to lapse into oblivion, for the history of the college, even, impugns old Adam’s motive in bequeathing $4,000 for the express purpose of building a much needed chapel. The historian says: “Johnson was

149 not such a man as would have been likely to be among the founders of Amherst College.

The desire of a childless old man to perpetuate his name seems to have been his chief inducement to make the bequest.

150 HISTORIC PELHAM The Story of Burroughs, the Preacher-Counterfeiter [from the Springfield Republican – 9 November, 1884 possibly] ____

A brilliant but erratic genius—how he deceived the Deacons, eluded his enemies, and made a good ending of a bad career

Pelham, November 8.

Just after the close of the Revolution the good people of the town had a singular experience with a ministerial fraud and imposter, quite uncommon so long ago, but many a town had similar experience since with ministerial wolves in sheep’s clothing, that did not escape with less serious harm than did Pelham. Even now, with all the facilities for intercommunication by rail, by mail, by telegraph and telephone, the ministerial fraud piles his vocation quite as successfully as did Stephen Burroughs al Ludlow, Pelham and

Attleboro in 1784. On a Tuesday afternoon in April or May, 1784, just 100years ago, a bright, active young man, 19 years of age, wearing a light grey coat with silver plated buttons, a green vest and red velvet breeches, a suit not unlike that of a modern bicyclist, rode into town on horseback. He had left the house of his father, Rev. Eden Burroughs at

Hanover, N.H. but a few days before with ten of his father’s old sermons in his pocket to seek his fortune. He had ridden that day from Palmer and announced himself as Rev. Mr.

Davis, a clergyman wanting employment. Dea. Gray was the man he inquired for, and to him he delivered a letter of recommendation written by Rev. Mr. Baldwin of Palmer.

The Rev. Davis had preached at Ludlow, the Sunday previous, and the good people there were suspicious. They looked upon his clothing as rather unclerical, but didn’t complain particularly about his preaching. They declined engaging his services at any rate, and advised him to ride on toe Palmer and see Mr. Baldwin. Doubtless they would have

151 engaged his serices as readily as did the people at Pelham, if Davis had gone firdt to Mr.

Baldwin and secured recommendation from him. Dea. Gray perused Mr. Baldwin’s letter, consulted with other leading members of the church, and as they had been without a settled minister si9nce Rev. Nathaniel Merrill’s departure more than a year previous and dependent upon “supplyers” as they were then called, and were destitute of one of that class just then Rev. Mr. Davis was hired for four Sabbaths at five dollars per Sabbath besides board, horse keeping, etc. At the expiration of the first engagement of four

Sabbaths, young Davis had supplied himself with clothing more fitted to his calling and was engaged to preach for four months, or ten Sabbaths, at the same salary as before.

There was unusual mortality in the town as well as neighboring towns at that time and Mr. Davis was called to attend many funerals at Pelham and adjoining towns, often without time for preparation, and on one occasion, when the funeral was held in a private house, someone who could see his manuscript,, reported that it had too much the appearance of age to have been lately prepared. It soon was nosed about that the new minister preached sermons not his own. Not getting satisfactory explanations from the young “supplyer,” a plan was decided upon for testing his ability to preach upon short notice. It was agreed that a text should be offered him on a Sunday morning with the request that he should use it as the text for the morning sermon. The following Sunday morning the first clause of the fifth verse of the ninth chapter of Joshua was handed in with the request that it be used as the text for the sermon. The language is, “And old shoes and clouted on their feet.” The discourse from this text was divided into three heads—first the place of shoes; second, of old shoes; and third, of clouted shoes. Old shoes he said, represented old sins which mankind had made use of from the earliest

152 times down to the present day, and a spirit of jealousy and discord might be counted as old as any shoes worn, etc. On the third head he said that those who wore these old shoes and practiced a system of jealousy were sensitive of its odious and hateful nature and were ashamed to be seen by God, man or the devil, and had recourse to patching and clouting themselves over with false pretenses to hide their shame and disgrace, etc. In applying the subject, the preacher said, “Will you suffer this hateful monster to rage among you? Will you not rather be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace?”

After the sermon, there was no doubt of his ability to preach upon short notice, but the people felt stung by the charges of jealousy.

Aside from the suspicions and jealousies of these Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, the summer passed quite pleasantly for all concerned, pastor and people seem to have been so free from disagreements and dissensions as they had been to other suppliers. In

September, when only two Sabbaths of the sixteen for which Davis had been engaged remained, and these paid for, a college friend, Joseph Huntingdon by name, came to

Pelham on his way to Coventry, Connecticut. On one or two occasions during his visit he addressed Davis by his true name, Burroughs. This attracted attention despite the explanation that it was a nickname used in college. Monday morning before the last

Sabbath Davis was to preach, he accompanied is friend, Huntingdon, some distance beyond Belchertown, on his way to Coventry. In passing the house of Rev. Mr. Forward of Belchertown, that gentleman came out and desired Davis and his fiends to call, saying that Rev. Mr. Chapin of Windsor was within and desirous of seeing Mr. Davis. The latter had no desire for an interview with Chapin and rode on. After parting with Huntingdon,

Davis turned back toward Pelham, but did not get past the Forward parsonage without

153 being saluted as Burroughs, as Mr. Chapin new him very well. During the ride back to

Pelham, Davis had time to reflect and came to the inevitable conclusion that his usefulness in his present field of labor was at an end, there was but one more Sabbath of his engagement remaining, and for that, he had drawn his pay; he expected that information of his real character and name would come soon from Belchertown and he wisely decided to flee from the wrath of the people he had deceived before it was too late.

Accordingly, after the family with whom he lived were asleep, Burroughs arose quietly, led his horse from the stable, mounted and rode away, but did not leave town that night.

Rousing a friend with whom he had been concocting a scheme for making counterfeit silver money, and whom he designates ads Lysander, he informed him of the approaching crisis and they decided it was best to lie by quietly and await developments, At an early hour next morning, the news circulated that Davis had disappeared. Before noon a messenger from Belchertown arrived and gave information of the4 change of name, the duplicity and deceit of the pretended minister. Burroughs was lying safe from immediate harm and describes the effect of the town upon the people in his own words:

This blew the flame into a tenfold rage. No pen can describe the uproar that was in the town of Pelham. They mounted hue and cry after me in every direction, with orders to spare not horse flesh. They perambulated the town, and anxiously asked everyone for circumstances which would lead to a discovery of where I was. * * * In building a consultation upon these disagreeable masters, everyone was anxious to clear himself of being the dupe of my artifice as much as possible. “I never liked him,” says one. “I always thought there was something suspicious about him,” says another. “He ever had a deceitful look,” says a third. In time, it has come to this that not one now could discern any thing which even appeared good or commendable about me, except one old lady who said, “Well, I hope they will catch him and bring him back among us and we will keep him for our preacher.”

At midnight following the day Pelham people were so angrily searching for

Burroughs, he left the house of his friend, Lysander, and rode east toward Greenwich.

154 An hour later, when near the border of Greenwich, he overtook a young man named

Powers, with whom he was acquainted and recognized. Powers hesitated about his reply when Burroughs inquired where he had been and the latter surmised that Powers had been engaged in searching for him at Pelham. Being charged with doing it, he reluctantly acknowledged that he had. Burroughs made Powers swear by all that was great and good that he would give no information about his whereabouts or the direction he had taken, but as soon as they had parted company, Powers rode back to Pelham and roused the town while Burroughs traveled without suspicion toward Rutland in Worcester County where he had a friend named Frink, and arrived there at 8 o’clock that morning. In a short time the sound of horses’ feet was heard, and Burroughs, through the open window of Frink’s shop, saw a large company of Pelham men rushing up. Burroughs ran out of a back door to elude them, and met one Konkey who attempted to seize him. Konkey had his right arm broken by a blow from a cane, and the fugitive met two of his Pelham deacons. Turning from them, he ran down the hill followed by the Pelham people who shouted, “Stop him! Stop him!” After running a short distance, Burroughs stopped, picked up a stone and faced his pursuers, who all halted, says Dr. Nehemiah Hinds who was knocked senseless by the runaway preacher. There was some angry talk between the pursuers and the pursued, and the people of Rutland began to gather as spectators of the novel scene. Burroughs kept all at a respectful distance until he reached and entered a barn, and mounting the haymow awaited the arrival of the men of Pelham, who were beginning to gather fresh courage. They filled the barn, but Burroughs held the haymow and defended the approach with a scythe snath. The “haymow sermon” is said to have been delivered here, but was really written afterwards, while in prison. After

155 considerable parlaying, in which the Rutland people took an active part, Deacon

McMullen tried to show them that the man at the summit of the haymow was an imposter, had called his name Davis when it was Burroughs; that he had been paid five dollars for one Sunday he had not preached; besides all these he had tried to murder

Konkey and Dr. Hinds and ought to be punished. The Rutlanders finally cooled the wrath of the angry Pelham men and proposed that all hands should adjourn to Wood’s tavern where Burroughs should liquidate the debt due Deacon Grey for money advanced for one Sunday’s preaching, in drink. This arrangement was carried out. In the midst of the drinking, Dr. Hinds put in an appearance, having recovered from the effects of the blow received and the tumult opened afresh. Burroughs soon learned they were preparing to take him back to Pelham and being in a room in the second story of the tavern, he locked the door. While someone went for an ax, he jumped out the widow to the roof of a shed, thence to the ground, and ran toward a swamp. Eluding his p;ursuers this time, they went back to the town, took a little more liquid satisfaction, and set off for

Pelham with less confidence in their own power, and filled with disappointment becausr the fugitive had escaped their clutches.

Burroughs left Rutland next morning, to the direction of Providence. On the road he learned that the people of Attleboro were in perishing need of a preacher. He engaged with them for four Sundays and boarded with a Mrs. Weld, widow of a former minister.

After completing his engagement at Attleboro and declining to stay longer, as the people there were very anxious to have him do, Burroughs by stealth and at night made his last visit to Pelham to perfect plans with his friend, Lysander, for making counterfeit money.

His friend had a small stock of counterfeit silver dollars on hand and was going to

156 Springfield to buy certain acids and other materials for the business. Lysander’s wife was distressed at the thought of her husband embarking in the business of making and circulating bogus dollars, and Burroughs volunteered to make the rip to Springfield. He purchased the desired materials, paid in counterfeit coin, was arrested before he had time to leave the tow, was tried, convicted and imprisoned at Springfield for awhile, then at

Northampton, and finished he three years’ sentence at Castle Island, Boston harbor.

Probably neither Deacon McMullen, Dr. Hinds, nor Mr. Konkey ever saw their summer

“supplyer” again after their unsuccessful attempt to arrest his flight at Rutland, unless they took pains to call upon him in prison at Northampton or Springfield.

The career of Stephen Burroughs did ot end with preaching without license or buying counterfeit materials and paying in counterfeit coin for his Pelham friend

Lysander, by any means. After his discharge from castle Island, he taught school at

Charlton and married his cousin there. He got into Worcester jail for crime alleged to have been committed at Charlton but escaped and went to Long Island and the Southern

States. Later on he engaged largely in counterfeiting United States money at Shipton,

Canada, there being no law against it at that time in that country. He is said to have forsaken his evil ways after a while and removed to the town of Three Rivers in Canada, where he lived with his family until past threescore and ten as an upright man, and left children who have occupied high places of trust and honor in the land of his adoption.

157 SHAYS’ REBELLION From QUABBIN – THE LOST VALLEY 1981

DANIEL SHAYS HIGHWAY

Turn the wheels up toward the Highland On the router of Daniel Shays, To the summit and the skyland On your grand vacation days.

On the old Taconic syncline With its mantle Phistocene; See afar the lone Monadnock In frame of living evergreen.

See the valley of Swift River, Quabbin Lake, a mirror bright; And with its groves of pine and maple, New Salem, in colonial white.

Vast project, Metropolitan, We watch progress, it has our praise; Living in the town it spared And riding on the Daniel Shays. George A. Brown, 1939

The Great Uprising among the discontented people of New England, commonly called Shays’ Rebellion, occurred at the close of the Revolutionary War. In the great contest for independence, New England, like all other parts of the country, strained every nerve to its utmost tension, and in behalf of the cause exhausted her resources to the point of depletion. At its close she was free, but utterly prostrate ad bleeding at every pore.

The excitement of war had sustained the activities of her blood, but then came the reaction with peace. This reaction was at first a great trial, and almost as strained as was the war. But the War of Sedition failed to overthrow our government, principally because of the incapacity of its leaders. The ruling classes would have little or nothing to

158 do with it. The Rebellion soon spent its force in a boisterous and disorganized gang, which had lacked only competent leadership to have made its efforts fruitful. The collapse of Shays’ Rebellion ended with a disastrous rout when the soldiers of Daniel

Shays failed to capture the Springfield Arsenal for badly needed ammunition and rifles, as well as cannons and shells.

However, that the New Englanders suffered serious privations of the real necessities of life, when every article of food and wearing apparel became scarce because of prohibitive taxes, is a well-known truth. The State was heavily in debt; the private debt of the State alone totaled more than five million dollars. Considering the fact the pre-war debt was but half a million dollars, the post-war figure seemed like an enormous sum. Most New England towns were also deeply in debt, were down to the point where they had to sequester private funds to maintain their troops. As a consequence, they had jeopardized their credit and knew nowhere to get financial assistance.

The inexperience and incapacity of office-holders made things worse. The terrific depreciation of paper money added to the woes of the people. And to cap the climax, federal laws permitted the creditors to use any method they wished to collect what was owed them. This started a riot of confiscations of all property held by the debtors, even to livestock, feed, then all real estate, the values of which were set by the creditors.

Appeals to the courts sustained the then enacted bitter laws, some of which remain on our statutes to this day.

If a debtor had no property, he was jailed, or forced to work his debt out, spending the days in the fields and the nights in jails.l Such hard times had never before been

159 experienced by the men who had given their all to their country during the Revolution, only to have their homes taken, piece by piece, with nothing to live for or live in.

As the country was generally impoverished, and its people unable to work or pay even a part of their debts, it was no wonder that grievances and distresses soon led to turbulence, thence to limited riots, and eventually to full rebellion. Actual preliminary hostilities started in April 1782. They were instigated by Samuel Ely, an irregular minister of Somers, Connecticut, whose spirit was inflamed by the conditions prevailing at the time. He was dismissed from the ministry, came to Hampshire County, ad led the delegates to a convention in Springfield, where the flames of resistance grew furiously.

The following year the rebellious minister formed a mob at Northampton which prevented the Supreme Judicial Court and another court from conduction sessions. DFor this act, Mr. Ely was arrested and ordered jailed in Springfield. A mob collected, however, and freed him from confinement.

Three former Revolutionary War officers were arrested as the ring-leaders of the

Springfield jail affair, and they were remanded to Northampton jail. Three hundred followers of the rebellion went to the jail and secured the release of the three men on condition that they and r. Ely appear before the General Court. The county sheriff had, however, previously called out twelve hundred members of the militia to guard the jail.

The General Court, however, treated the case with leniency in order to pacify the excited feelings of the populace. Court sessions continued to be disturbed all over the State within the next two or three years, and by this time all citizens were in a fever of ferment, and general anarchy was feared.

160 Then appeared the man who is stated by all historians to have been the real and resolute leader of the rebellion,, which from that day henceforth became known throughout the world as Shays’ Rebellion. He was Daniel Shays, the son of poor parents, a genuine soldier of fortune, whose formal education was meagre. Shays was a natural leader of men; he was courageous, strong-minded, and most ambitious. A native of

Hopkinton, he was born in 1747, and worked as a farmer in Great Barrington. He was credited with great bravery at the Bunker Hill engagement, and was named an army lieutenant. Later he organized a company on the promise he would be given a captaincy.

He fulfilled his part of the bargain, but the army failed to live up to its, and as a result his troops were assigned to various units and scattered throughout the east.

However, he earned his two bars following his valiant service at Burgoyne’s surrender and left the army following the war. With his long-time friend, Luke Day, he organized the march on Springfield. When both men were driven from the State following the disastrous rebellion, they retired to the highest hills of New Hampshire. Where they located and how they lived, is even to today a mystery to everyone. One fairly authentic source states Shays died in poverty in New York State in 1825, but legend and other reports state he never left New Hampshire, but was supported in his hiding places by many of his old soldier friends until he died, and the secret of his whereabouts is still a deep and dark and well-kept mystery.

His constant companion, Luke Day, was born in West Springfield, the son of a wealthy father, but for some unknown reason, the estate was left to Day’s younger brother. Day wasw commissioned a captain in the Revolutionary War, and his service lasted several years. He returned home with the insignia of a major, but without a dime

161 in his possession. He was remarkable in physique, was rather boisterous, but was brave and wielded tremendous influence with his friends. He perhaps was more sagacious than was his friend, Shays, but the latter was much more the gentleman.

After the rout of Shays’ troops, following the attack on the Springfield Arsenal,

Day joined Shays in their escape from the Pelham area, following the order of the government of a sizable reward for Shays’ capture. This, however, was never accomplished, for the escaping pair had too many friends to hide and feed them on their journey northward, and within a few years the entire matter was dropped.

Because of the limited space permitted, the above is a more or less general outline of why the Pelham rebel initiated the rebellion, and how its finale occurred. Shays’ troops, including a couple of hundred former soldiers who participated with valor in the war with Great Britain, were later forgiven by the Government, permitted to return to their homes in the alley, and soon were back to the normal life permitted each citizen of the newly-formed nation.

162 STEPHEN BURROUGHS From QUABBIN – THE LOST VALLEY 1981

One bright day in the year 1783, a young man, garbed in a light gray coat with shining silver-plated buttons, a green vest and red velvet knee britches, walked up

Pelham Hill, inquiring of the first man he met if there were need of a “supplier” for the local pulpit. He knew the town had no settled minister, introduced himself as a “Mister

Davis,” and said he was looking for such a post.

A meeting of the townsmen soon was held and the very unbashful young man informed the gathering he was supplying pulpits during the summer months to earn enough to pay his way through college in the fall. He was quizzed slightly about the quality of his sermons, and then was offered the post of acting-minister with a salary of five dollars each Sunday, together with his board and room, as well as the stabling of his horse, which he had left at the foot of the hill.

The youth proved his brilliance by delivering some remarkably fine sermons for a few weeks, but suspicions arose among his listeners that though he delivered fine sermons, it was just barely possible he was not the originator of such excellent discourses. The church followers in Pelham then decided to make a test by telling the orator he was to give his sermon on that day on a subject they had selected.

Not in the least non-plussed by their trickery, Mr. Davis began his discourse on the chosen subject, “Old Shoes, ad Clouted, Upon Their Feet.” The young man coolly divided the subject in three parts, likened persons who wore old shoes to such ads those who became suspicious of their fellowmen and made themselves odious; suggested that the wearing of clouted shoes was sinful in that wearing them without patching was a

163 shameful manner in which to live; and after discussing the manner of making shoes stated the error of wearing anything but good shoes in the future. Though the preacher uttered not a single word of wisdom or philosophy in his sermon, it seemed to satisfy the suspicions of the suspicious, and the ministerial career of Reverend Davis was safe up to that point.

But the story behind the story was that Mr. Davis was actually Stephen

Burroughs, the renegade son of a well-liked and bright minister who lived a few miles from Dartmouth College. The youth was bright enough but too full of tom-foolery to study. He had involved other classmates in scrapes, always escaping by lying, and his neglect of his books soon brought him into real trouble. He was caught copying an examination, and was thrown out of Dartmouth. Pleas from his father eventually landed him back again, but the interlude was brief, and Stephen was fired from Dartmouth for good.

He decided then to tour the world, and finding a large number of his father’s sermons in the library at home, took those with him. They were not taken by him for the good purpose for which they had been written, but rather to earn a few dollars in case he ran across a preaching job once in awhile. He soon ran into bad company and found work, if illegal activities an be expressed as work, by learning the counterfeiting trade from an old hand. The counterfeiter was located in Springfield, Massachusetts, and for a while he kept to his profession while Burroughs was the salesman of the firm. He had been nearly caught in the Western Massachusetts area in passing some of the spurious money, so escaped the law by posing as a traveling minister.

164 Everything was lovely for a while until the actual rogue from Springfield made a hurried call on him. From that moment Burroughs was a marked man for the rest of his life.

Strangers in any of the small communities in the valley were suspected persons until they proved their innocence, and in this visit Mr. Davis walked into immediate trouble when the Springfield man called him by his own name, Mr. Burroughs.

The pseudo-preacher then knew the game was up, and immediately ran to his horse and sped away with his accomplice. In a trice, a posse was formed and the chase was on. The course was on a direct line to Rutland where Burroughs hired a room for the night to escape his followers. However, he was soon roused from his bed and came downstairs in the tavern to try and talk himself out of his trouble. And, surprisingly enough, this he managed to accomplish by first asking the former church embers why he was wanted. They first told him he was a fake, and must return to Pelham and face the consequences. This he agreed to do, but he was then advised he had been paid five dollars in advance for the following Sunday’s sermon.

Then the rascal suggested that all talk of returning be put off until morning, when he would make amends a far as the money was concerned, and then stunned his captors by inviting them all into the barroom for a round or two of drinks. The round or two began to add up until, a few hours later, everybody started to sing the praises of the host, the erstwhile Mr. Davis, and soon all was forgotten and forgiven, and the merriest posse which New England ever saw was on its way back to Pelham, still singing and roaring the praise of the brilliant young man who had treated them so well at the Rutland Tavern.

165 But relief was of short duration, for the police in several cities heard of the affair and all hands were searching for Burroughs. He was finally located in Worcester, was tried in Springfield, and then sent to jail. He escaped soon without difficulty, was again picked up by the Worcester police and sent to jail in that city. Before long Burroughs broke out of jail and managed to get to New York where he really started counterfeiting on a large scale. Only this time it was Canadian money, and at the time no United Sttes law had been enacted to hold the renegade.

During one period of his illegal transactions, he managed to arrive in Charlton where he was asked to take a teaching job. It seems one of the pupils, a girl who was young in age but looked much older because of her mental incapacity, took quite a fancy to the dandy, Burroughs. Within a short while the inevitable occurred, the girl’s father then appeared on the scene, and before a week was out, Mr. Burroughs became a benedict.

He shortly quit the school and the community, unaccompanied by his spouse, and was back in New York at his profession, still manufacturing coins of the Canadian realm.

Satisfied he could make more profit by moving to Canada and thus make United States coins, he and his partner established themselves in business, and were just as safe from police interference as they had been in New York. By that time Burroughs was beginning to feel middle age creeping upon him, and without any notice to his partner, he quit the business, and entered a much more sedate profession.

Report has it he was a brilliant teacher, loved the life of a pedant, and finally entered into a period of philosophic study, realizing his life up to then had netted him nothing materially. He stated he had eventually discovered what he wanted, to teach the

166 young how unfruitful his past years had been. Burroughs was tendered many other high teaching positions, but he refused them all. He was completely satisfied with his lot, and told a friend he had but one desire; that was to live long enough to imbue in the minds of his students the realization that a rebellious life such as he had endured, never provided him with one hour of real comfort or satisfaction. He died poor in wealth, but was mourned by the thousands who learned the true lessons of life by his teachings and rather late example.

167 HISTORIC OLD PELHAM One of the Decaying Hill Towns of Massachusetts

Poor in Population, but Rich in Reminiscences ______

Some of the Latter Rehearsed in Interesting Fashion

September 27, 1884

The center of this old town, like many others, is on the top of a backbone or ridge of land running north and south, and it takes a long climb up the hills to reach it from the east or west. The approach is more abrupt from the east, but when you reach the summit you find the air pure and bracing and but little higher land in sight near by. In the northeast Monadnock looms up against the blue sky and the far northwest Graylock and other high peaks of the Green Mountains can be seen. Two and a half miles east as the crow flies, but three and a half or more by the winding highway, a church and a clump of dwellings are visible. This is what was known until 1822 as Pelham East Hill. It is now

Prescott and occupies a companion ridge at about the same elevation as that of Pelham.

Between the two is the deep “Hollow” and at the bottom of the valley runs the west branch of the Swift River which is the boundary between the two towns that ere formerly one. Low down in the “Hollow” on the east side of the stream at a point in the “Middle

Range” a road was built 140 years ago where the famous Conkey Tavern has stood until last year, when some vandal burned it. From the spot where this ancient tavern stood, there was not a single building to be seen in any direction. It was at this lonely tavern that the discontented and debt burdened yeomanry gathered by the blazing fireplaces of

Landlord Conkey in 1786 and 1787, rehearsed their grievances and discussed measures of relief. Daniel Shays lived only half a mile away and was a constant visitor at the old

168 tavern. Entering heartily into the plans of the discontented people he soon became their acknowledged leader, drilled them I military tactics, and led the combined forces of the rebels at the disastrous attack upon the state militia at Springfield January 25, 1787. He retreated in great haste with 11 men to Pelham, and for four days following the fight, his followers were quartered upon the East and West hills, while Shays occupied the old tavern in the “Hollow” as his headquarters. Failing in obtaining a cessation of hostilities from Gen. Lincoln, Shays marched his men to Petersham, where they were overtaken and dispersed by the forces of Gen. Lincoln who marched from Hadley.

The town was incorporated January 15, 1742, and the date of the first town meeting was April 19, 1743, the warrant being signed by Robert Peebles and “dated at Pelham this ninth day of April in the sixteenth year of his majesty’s reign, Anno Domino 1743.”

There were but 139 towns in the State at that time—only ten in what is now the three western counties, and within the limits of the present county of Hampshire only

Northampton, Hadley and Hatfield had been incorporated previous to 1742.

Notwithstanding the fact that like other hill towns there has been a great falling away in population since the time of its greatest prosperity, when it had upwards of 1100 inhabitants, down to about 600 at present, and although the tendency as in most hill towns is for a lower grade of inhabitants to come in as the old stock emigrates or dies out, there are still many excellent people in the town. The Abercrombies, Abbotts, Aldriches,

Arnolds, Buffums, Chapins, Cooks, Conkeys, Eatons, Grays, Grants, Halls, Hamiltons,

Harknesses, Rankins, Randals, Southworths, Taylors, Thompsons, Kingmans, --families who made the town what it was in its most prosperous days 50 years ago, --are names now scarcely heard within its borders and many of these families are without a single

169 person of the name in town to keep up the family record. Robert Peebles, blacksmith and

James Thornton, yeoman, were the men who made the purchase of the tract in 1739 of

John Stoddard of Northampton for the sturdy Scotch Presbyterian settlers, originally from the North of Ireland, but who came from Worcester here. The sum paid was $7300, old tenor. August 6, 1740 they voted to build a church, 46 by 36 feet on the ground with posts 25 feet high. The lands were surveyed and land reserved for seven roads running due east and west through the town, one-half mile apart. Lots of 100 acres were laid out and numbered. No. 1 was reserved as the “minister’s lot,” other acres were set apart for a

“common training field and burial place”; on this the church was built and was used for public worship until 1838, when a new and modern one was erected. The old building was moved back to the north into the edge of the ancient burial place where it still stands.

A few years since, the town appropriated money to clapboard and shingle it, and it looks as though it might last a half century longer and do good service as town hall, selectmen’s office, etc.

No burials have been made in this old burial place for a long time. The quaint headstones have been heaved this way and that by the frosts of more than a hundred winters ; some lie prone upon the graves they were set to mark. Many of them were ordinary rough stones without inscriptions, others were cut and inscribed, but the storms of many long years have obliterated some of the names entirely and others are difficult to trace. Here the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, and if one could decipher the inscriptions on the moss-covered stones, he would doubtless find such old Scotch names as Alexander, Ferguson, McConkey, Patterson, McFarland, McCulloch, Stinson,

Johnson, etc. The Peebleses, the Dunlaps and others of the first or early settlers are lying

170 there and Rev. Richard Crouch Graham, the second settled minister, was buried there in

1771, aged 82.

Robert Abercrombie, the first minister, was dismissed about 1754. Of the latter we have heard, later Abercrombies tell of a church committee being sent to the parsonage to remonstrate with their pastor for using more strong liquor than was consistent with his position at the head of the church. Learning of their proposed visit, the Rev. Robert directed his wife to prepare flip, as the custom was, for visitors that would come that evening. “First make it of half rum and half water, the second tine with more rum and not so much water, and the third time with no water.” The committee came, partook of the first course of flip and then made known the errand on which they had come. The pastor was sorry that it should have been thought necessary for the church to send a committee to him for reproof.—was humble and promised that there should never be occasion for such a committee in the future. The second social mug of flip came around and the committee, having discharged the duty laid upon them so satisfactorily to themselves, drank well of it. A third time it came around—this time all rum, and the result was that two of the committee were unable to go home until near morning and the third lay on the floor of the room until noon of the following day. The committee’s very brief report to the church was: “We called upon the pastor as directed, and he gave us

Christian satisfaction.”

The “common and training field” is smaller than of old, but the grass on the rather rough surface has been mowed and raked clean, and the old graveyard is kept free from weeds and bushes by someone, perhaps by selectman Myrett Boynton, who deserves credit for his pains to render the old hilltop more attractive. Three or four houses have

171 been painted this season, which adds much to the general appearance of the hamlet which is decidedly better than it was 20 years ago. Rev. L. K. Vaill divides his time between the Packardville Church and this; he holds services every Sunday afternoon at the church to such as the clear-toned steel bell calls to worship and does what he can to keep the morals of the people pure and the air and sunlight serve to tone up any and all who may climb up here for rest and renewal of physical health.

172

HISTORIC PELHAM Concerning the Public Service of the Ancient Citizens ______

Rigid requirements for original settlers and their influence on their descendants. What kind of men the town has sent out into the world—Another reunion proposed.

December 17, 1884

In studying the character of the early settlers of this town and in tracing some of the important occurrences which disturbed the quiet monotony of their lives, some of which aroused their Scotch-Irish blood to high heat, we have often all been impressed with their sterling honesty and their courage. The faith and hope which inspired them in the laborious undertaking of settling a wild tract of land, of subduing it and brining it into0 proper condition to afford them a living and enough more to make it possible for them to build a church, erect schoolhouses, establish schools, and to pay an educated minister’s salary (for it must be remembered that Rev. Robert Abercrombie was educated in

Edinburgh, Scotland, and was familiar with Hebrew, Latin, and Greek) besides contributing their full share of men and material for the country’s defense, challenges our respect and admiration and leads us to forget minor faults of character and action. It was but a short time after the acceptance of the act of incorporation in 1743, before there was a demand upon them for public service. How many men may have been called to the

Indian Wars cannot be stated, but at least one was thus engaged in 1747, for James

Ferguson was exempted from taxation that year as he was in the army; doubtless others were similarly engaged. As early as June 20, 1773, in addressing the state committee at

Boston concerning the impending trouble with the mother country, they said: “We are

173 not at present much intimidated with that pompous boasting on the other side of the waters, viz., that Great Britain could blow America into atoms.” The people of the town without question were not in the least intimidated by any threats which England had made, and having once decided on the question at issue, they clung tenaciously to their position through thick and thin. They were the sort of men to make good fighters.

The following letter which I copy from the original, bad spelling and lack of punctuation retained without alteration, shows that Pelham men were early in the service of the country, though just the nature of the service is not indicated. The writer seems to believe that times may be more quiet in Pelham and gives his reasons. Friend Dick, to whom it was addressed was doubtless John Dick, and the Capt. Cowden was probably

Capt. David Cowden, a prominent citizen and town officer, quite often for 25 years before 1775, as the records of the town show, and who was chaplain of a company of 31 men belonging to Col. Woodbridge’s regiment at Cambridge. Capt. Cowden’s company being stationed at the college June 14, 1775, and were probably doing duty at

Charlestown in August following at the date of the letter:

Charlestown, August 4, 1775 Friend Dick these Linds I write to your famalay hoping they will find you all well as thay. Lave my boy and I hart hole beer all this time thank God for it and we are all pretty well that Belongs to Palham and as for News you must read the prants Because I cannot sand you that is Sartin to Depand upon for truth only you need. Net Bee afraid of the Devail in palham for he has his handful to Dow beer and I know he is ashamed of his undertaken. Salfredge is wall and sands his love to all inquiring frands. Capt. Couden sands his love to you all: Excuse my writing Sir when you look on the paper and Beer the above writing So know more at present But I Remain your Loving frand and humble Servant John White

Mathew Brown Is wall So Know more.

174 Sir go and read the whole to my wife and you will oblidge me much-0- Loving wife and children I hope that these will find you all wall as they lave us. I must Bee Short, gat 2 or 3 Bushel of Salt a quick as you can for it will Bee Deer and what the Barn will Not winter the Sallar Shall and give them as good a Chance as you Can and as for my coming home I Can Not if you sant tan men to my Room Do as wall as you Can So now more at presant But I am your loving Husban till Dath. John White

As showing the integrity of purpose and the moral convictions of these Scotch-

Irish Presbyterians as applied to the settlement and building up of a new town, and as specially indicating what their ideal town should be, we quote from an agreement signed by the proprietors, September 26, 1738, before Peebles and Thornton purchased the land comprising the town.

“It is agreed that families of good conversation be settled on the premises who shall be such as were inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland or their descendants, being Protestants, and none be admitted but such as bring good and undeniable credentials or certificates of their being persons of good conversation and of the Presbyterian persuasion as used in the Church of Scotland and conform to the discipline thereof.”

Such an ironclad proviso to govern the settlement of a new town at the present day, would be considered a bar to successful growth and prosperity. But the effect of this wholesome article of discrimination in their bond of agreement was to keep out shiftless men of bad moral tendencies and to attract those interested to sustain the church and support schools and who were thrifty and industrious in their habits. This scrutiny of those who proposed to settle in the town was continued for a long time, thought it has entirely disappeared now. People who came to town to settle in the early days had respect for the church and jealously guarded the good name of the town, while the class of newcomers to the hill towns now have as a general thing little pride in the town of their adoption and are little for citizenship therein.

175 ` The policy adopted in the settlement of the town had much to do in determining what the character of the descendants of the early settlers should be so long as they continued to abide upon the terms of their fathers, and also after the young men began to leave their native hills and go out to become citizens elsewhere. Fifty years ago and more, many young men of the town had become expert of stone cutting and other stone work, and they spent the summer seasons at Hartford, New York or Boston cutting stone, and came home for the winter. Then they began to emigrate to the West, and to more manufacturing towns of this and other States. Perhaps within the last fifty or sixty years no town of its size has sent out as many men who have become worthy well to do citizens of the Union’s towns and cities, where they have located, as has Pelham.

Among the natives of Pelham who have attained what the world calls success as business or professional men w may mention Dr. Otis Abercrombie, Ira Abercrombie,

Wells and Edward Southworth, Dr. David Thompson, and Dr. James Thornton, both of whom were prominent physicians of Northampton for many years, Dr. James Dunlap and

Dr. Austin W. Thompson, at present and for years past worthy members of their profession at Northampton, Dr. I. H. Taylor, the oldest physician of Amherst, S. S.

Draper of Northampton, Lyman draper of Ware, Judge Ithamar Conkey, for many years probably judge of Hampshire County, Nathaniel Gray of San Francisco, Cal., Dr. Harvey

W. Harkness of San Francisco, widely known as a scientist, James N. Smith of Brooklyn,

N. Y., railroad contractor, Warren C. Wedge of Chicopee, John Taylor of New York

City, Martin Harkness of Salt Lake City, Dr. M. Eaton of Peoria, Ill., Dr. Napier Eaton of

Peoria, William Otis, inventor of the steam shovel, Dr. Johnson Thompson, Dr. Albert

Robinson, Jared T. Westcott, cashier of the First National Bank of Amherst, Isaac Otis,

176 William Gray, Cyrus Kingman, Abel Kingman, Aaron Dwelly, William P. Daniels,

L.V.B. Cook of Belchertown, Joseph Barrows of Easton, W.S. Westcott of Amherst,

Alden Grout, for many years missionary in Africa, Dr. Elisha Cook and Henry Harkness of Arizona, mining engineer and manager. Many others could be added to the list of industrious well-to0do citizens of this and other States who were natives of this historic old town, and went out from it within the last 30 years to find home and a competence elsewhere.

Since the centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town which was held

January 16, 1843, no reunion of natives of the town has occurred. On that occasion

Luther Chapin, John Rankin, Henry Kingman, David Conkey, and John Gray were the committee selected by the town to make arrangements for the important event. Ithamar

Conkey delivered an address in the Congregational Church and Calvin D. Eaton provided dinner to which 150 men and women sat down. A daughter of Rev. Robert

Abercrombie, the first minister of the town, was present and several other descendants, the orator of the day being a maternal grandson. Though this centennial celebration occurred in midwinter, it seems to have been a very joyous occasion to all present. For a year or two past there has been more or less talk about a reunion of natives of Pelham and

Prescott and their descendants. A committee consisting of representatives of both towns was appointed to make arrangements for the reunion last summer, but nothing was done about it. Sometime during the summer or autumn of 1885, as I am informed, those who have the matter in hand are determined the proposed reunion shall be held and opportunity given to all interested to come hack to these old hilltops and revisit the scenes of their early lives, and to renew the friendship of their youthful days. With

177 careful attention in arranging for the proposed reunion, a goodly number of former residents from places near and remote, would doubtless respond to an invitation to be present, and thus ensure a pleasant and profitable meeting.

178